Real Life
by Cordria
Summary: And what if it WAS real?
1. Heroes Are Not Born, They Are Made

**WARNING WARNING WARNING!!! **

I'm starting this story out as a 'T' story, but I don't feel like really working on keeping the dark, twisted, haunted-ness of this story to a minimum. So there is a possibility that this will become an 'M' story at some point. If it does, I will post a big note at the beginning in warning. Please don't worry about smutty stuff or lemons – I've never written those into my stories – but it will get dark and disturbing. You've been amply warned.

**WARNING WARNING WARNING!!!**

Second warning: I'm _twisting_ the characters (and the settings) a little bit to make them more _realistic_ and my own. This makes this story a little AU. If this bothers you, please stop reading and don't complain to me. I'm not going to 'fix' my changes. I happen to like them, but I also respect your opinion to not – I just don't want to hear it. Flamers without **_just cause_** WILL be hunted down and used as mulch in my garden.

Oh, and let's get one thing straight right now. I am _not_ Butch Hartman, nor am I rewriting the Danny Phantom series. This is _my_ story and will happen on _my_ timeline. My story and Hartman's story diverge at the end of this prologue – from there on out, everything is game as I write my story. And I'm not getting any money from this, so this is also a blanket disclaimer for the entire story.

**WARNING WARNING WARNING!!!**

_*edited 12/2008*_

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**Real Life**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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(Prologue)

In Which Heroes are Not Born, They are Made

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In _real life_, there is no such thing as a superhero.

In _real life_, the innocent get targeted more often than not.

In _real life_, people can't be put into nice, little categories of good or evil.

In _real life_, the line between right and wrong blurs into nonexistence.

In _real life_…

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Sam flicked the light switch with one chipped, black-painted fingernail and gazed down into the depths of the Fentons' basement with an arched eyebrow. A single light bulb had sizzled to life to illuminate the steep stairwell. The basement door she had just opened was painted a startling Day-Glo orange, the words 'Fenton Laboratory – Keep Out' stenciled in black letters across its surface. "The infamous _lab_," the Goth said with a sarcastic tone, "you're finally going to let us see it?"

"There's nothing to see," Danny muttered as he pushed past her and clumped down the stairs. "It's just a basement."

Sam bit back a tiny smile as Tucker brushed past her excitedly. She had seen the tiny flush that had crept onto Danny's face at the mention of his parents' _laboratory_. She wasn't entirely sure why Danny was always to uncomfortable with the idea of his parents working in their basement, but up until this particularly sunny Tuesday afternoon, he'd always been adamant about them not going down into the lab.

"But it's _the_ basement!" Tucker was almost stepping on Danny's heels by this point, craning his head to try and see around the corner at the bottom. "You've been dropping hints about this place since elementary school – I'm dying to see it!"

Danny shot Sam a glance and rolled his eyes as she finally started to follow them. She carefully made her way down the steps, just as excited as Tucker to see the 'insane' inventions, but not nearly as willing to risk tripping and falling down the stairs. Danny stepped off the bottom stair and twisted to his right, reaching out and flipping a light switch. Brilliant lights burst into existence in the lab, spilling into the shadowy recesses of the stairs.

"Come on," Tucker continued as he tripped down the last few stairs, "it's got to be interesting; your parents design secret weapons for the government…" he trailed off as he stepped around the corner, his eyes widening despite the blinding glare of the lights.

Sam grinned at his speechlessness for a moment before she glanced around the wall that separated the stairs from the lab. "Whoa," she whispered.

Illuminated by dozens of mismatched lamps and fluorescent bulbs, the walls and ceiling were covered in aluminum foil that had been stapled and duct-tapped and was peeling in places. Rickety garage-style metal shelves lined the walls and formed narrow aisles along the left side of the room. Huge tables took up most of the open space in the middle of the room, and to the right was a large circle of steel built into the wall. And everywhere there were _things_: blenders, toasters, fans, televisions, radios and computers, boxes of wires, old phones, broken toys, and at least one ancient refrigerator. Everything was piled haphazardly on the shelves or stuffed into overflowing boxes. Cascading from the tables, the wiry corpses of the least-fortunate electronics sat in half-taken-apart chaos.

"We never come down here because it's a death trap," Danny sighed as his friends stared at the tons of junk his parents had collected over the years for their experiments. "Watch out for the black shelves – they tend to collapse if you breathe on them wrong."

Sam snorted and folded her arms. "I guess I can't complain about you not recycling anymore. Your parents are doing a wonderful job."

"Let's just find that stupid game and get out of here. We're not supposed to be down here." Danny slipped between two folding tables covered in the remains of what looked like at least two vacuum cleaners and carefully made his way over to the side of the basement that was filled with the shelving units. "Where do you think they put it?"

He gazed between two rows of teetering shelves for a moment before grabbing a stepstool and making his way nearly down the narrow aisle. As he set down the stool and climbed up to study the boxes on the top shelf, Sam walked over and leaned against the end of one of the old shelves, dust accumulating on her black shirt from the long-forgotten boxes. Wrinkling her nose and brushing herself off, her elbow knocked against an old thermos that had been perched precariously on one of the shelves. It wobbled, crashed to the floor, and rolled under a shelf.

Danny glanced down at where the thermos had vanished. "Sam? Can you make sure that gets picked up?" He yanked a box off one of the rickety shelves in a small shower of dust. Carefully balancing it while he dug through it, he searched for his game, apparently unconcerned by the thick layer of dust growing on his dark blue shirt and jeans.

"Why?" Sam raised a skeptical eyebrow. "This place is a disaster anyways."

"My parents are on an inventing streak. If you leave it on the floor there's a chance they'll try to make it into some kind of rocket or inter-dimensional container or something and we'll end up drinking radioactive hot chocolate next winter." He shuffled things around in the box for a moment. "Anything on the floor is considered fair game."

She stared down at the shelf that hid the thermos. "It's that bad?"

He laughed softly, not seemingly to be paying attention to what he was saying. "Last fall my parents messed with the stove, and do you remember what happened to the turkey we had at Thanksgiving? Same thing."

Tucker sighed happily and nodded, but Sam shivered and grimaced. She remembered that dinner fiasco _perfectly_. "That's one of the reasons why I chose to become a vegan last year."

"What was wrong with it?" Tucker muttered as he picked up a half-together radio and fiddled with the wires, "It was delicious."

Danny looked over at him for a second, blinking, before shaking his head and putting the box back on the shelf. "It was glowing and levitating, Tucker. You and Dad were the only two people that dared to eat it."

He shrugged. "So? It was good."

As Danny grabbed another box to look through, Sam bent down to pick up the fallen thermos. Crouched on the floor, her fingers reaching under the shelf to grab the thermos, a sparkle caught her eye. Squinting through the densely-piled junk that littered the lab, Sam studied the large, round object that was built into a wall on the other side of the lab. It was a hole in the wall about six feet around and about six feet deep. Jumbled with wires and metal bits, it was surrounded by thick metallic plates and electronics. Sam, finally retrieving the thermos from its hiding spot under the shelf, stood up. "What's that?"

"What's what?" Danny asked distractedly. "Yes!" He pulled the dusty game out of the battered box and held it up in triumph. Balancing it carefully on his head as he tried to put the box back on the shelf, he knocked into another box sitting dangerously close to the edge and sent it tumbling to the ground. Old fishing equipment clattered loudly as it fell into a jumbled mess at the base of the stool. "Darn it!"

"That." Sam interrupted his furious glaring at the mess, pointing at the portal.

The game perched on his head teetered dangerously as Danny glanced up at the round hole and sighed. "Oh, that. My parents are working on it. It's supposed to be some kind of TV thing where you can see the 'other side'." He grabbed the game before it could fall and held it.

"Other side?" Sam asked. Her eyes glittered in the brilliant light of the mismatched lights. She knew that Danny's parents were part-time 'ghost hunters' – the thought that this might be one of their paranormal inventions caught her attention. She loved spooky ghost stories.

"You know: ghosts and stuff."

Tucker set the broken radio back on the table and squinted through the brightly-lit mess. "Does it work?"

"No," Danny snorted. "Of course not. It's one of my parent's ghost inventions. You know how well those things work."

Tucker shrugged, craning his neck to see the portal better. "Come on, Danny – your parents are brilliant inventors. They get into all sorts of science magazines and their 'secret' government stuff works really well. Didn't they get that hovercraft thing working?"

"The speeder? I suppose _that_ worked okay, but none of their ghost stuff ever works. Besides the fact that there're no ghosts to _find, _their ghost inventions all use psychotropic triggers – you know, the idea that if you _believe _that something will work, it will." Danny chuckled softly.

"I'm still surprised you know what psychotropic means," Tucker grinned.

Danny jumped off the stool, scowling down at the pile of fishing equipment on the floor. "Well, I had to look it up..."

"And then you had to have Jazz tell you what you looked up," Sam added, snickering. Her grin only grew when her best friend switched his glower from the mess on the floor to his friends.

"Still. _None_ of their stupid ghost inventions work."

Sam shook her head at the annoyed look on Danny's face. She took a few steps towards the portal and asked, "Can we go look at it?"

Danny gazed at her for a second before glancing down at the mess one last time and began to work his way out of the aisle with the newly-found game in his hands. "You know my parents don't really want us down here. We'll get 'the speech' if they get home and find us in the lab." He slid out from between the rickety shelves and glanced around.

"The speech?" Tucker asked.

"It's dangerous; you'll get electrocuted; you might die; etcetera, etcetera…" Danny muttered in a horrible impression of his father. "It takes about three hours, depending on who gives it."

Sam nodded, still gazing at the portal. "But can we see it?"

Danny looked dubious, obviously wanting to head back upstairs, but Sam and Tucker both started to beg at the same time. "Please?"

Sighing, Danny gave in. "Sure, fine."

Sam threaded her way over to the portal, still absently holding the thermos she had picked up in one hand and brushing a lock of her frizzy black hair out of her face with the other. "It'd be so cool if it really worked, you know. We'd get to see ghosts and dead people and…" she trailed off.

"You are so Goth," Tucker pronounced, following a step behind her.

Sam glared at him and punched him in the shoulder. "Why doesn't it work?"

Shaking his head sourly, Danny said, "You mean other than the fact that it's got that psychotropic trigger… which means that you have to _believe_ it'll work in order for it to turn on?" He paused with one eyebrow raised, studying the mess of wires. "Come on, Sam – no amount of _belief_ will make this thing work. You can't make a portal that'll show you the afterlife."

Tucker nodded, leaning back against a table. "But it'd still be fun if it did work."

"Yeah, totally," Danny said with a quick smile. "To get to see what's on the other side? That'd be fantastic. But it's never going to work."

Sam studied the portal carefully before a small grin flickered across her face. "So it'll never work… but you definitely have to go in so I can get a picture for my scrapbook."

"Me?" Danny asked incredulously.

Sam nodded, her smile firmly in place. "It's _your_ basement." She gestured with the thermos.

"It's my _parent's_ lab."

Tucker crossed his arms and joined the argument. "They're _your_ parents."

Danny looked from one to the other. "I'm not going to get to go upstairs and continue pretending my parents are normal until I do this, huh?"

Both shook their heads, identical smiles on their faces. "Picture, picture, picture," Tucker chanted.

Danny scowled and thrust the game at Tucker, making him wince when a corner dug into his chest. "Hold this," he muttered as he turned to dig through a discarded box next to the portal, pull out a set of ugly white clothes, and shake off a layer of dust.

"What's that?" Tucker asked in horror.

Sam winced. "Yeah, it's a fashion disaster – and that's saying something coming from me."

Danny held it up and sighed. "It's called a 'clean suit' or something. If I get any kind of dust or hair or something on their 'precious experiments', I'll never hear the end of it. The 'contaminating the lab' lecture was last timed at over five hours, and they've probably come up with some new stuff since then. So shut it." He yanked the white pants on over his jeans and threw the jacket over his shirt, not bothering with the myriad of buttons.

While Danny snapped a black belt around his waist to hold the baggy pants up, Sam was busy studying the dirty disaster of a lab with an odd look in her eye. There was dust and debris everywhere. "They care about dirt?" she asked.

"Don't ask," Danny muttered. "Trust me on this one: it's not worth asking."

Tucker snickered. "Well, if you die, at least you'll look stupid."

Glaring at his best friend, Danny carefully stepped onto the small bit of floor left inside the portal that wasn't covered in dangling wires and cords. He looked around at all the bits and pieces before turning around to pose for the picture.

Sam set the thermos down on a nearby table and brought the camera to her eye, but hesitated. "You've got your dad's head on your jacket."

Glancing down, Danny wrinkled his nose when he spotted the cartoon-ish face of his father stuck to his jacket pocket. "Ever since he got these stupid stickers, he's been sticking them on everything." He ripped off the Fenton sticker, wadded it into a tiny ball, and threw it in the general direction of the trash can on the other side of the room. "Better?"

She nodded, and grinned. "So? Do you think they'll ever get it to actually work?"

Danny shook his head. "I don't think they even know where to start right now. They were really depressed that it wasn't working. I think they gave it their best shot already."

Tucker chuckled the other side of the table as he rested his elbows against the cluttered top. "Maybe you have to _believe_ that it'll work."

Danny laughed, shifting his feet around in the mishmash of wires inside the portal. "Yeah, the great Danny Fenton," he posed heroically with his hands at his waist, taking on a dramatic tone, "fated to save the world by turning on his parents' crazy, lame-ass ghost portal!" He grinned, letting his hands drop and shaking his head in disbelief. "Got that picture yet?"

Tucker quickly snapped a picture with his camera phone as Sam raised her camera. "Yeah, and it'll be all over the school by the end of the week." He grinned down at the thumbnail that appeared on his screen. "Maybe sooner."

"Hey!" Danny lunged at Tucker just as Sam's camera flashed. His feet caught on the wires, unbalancing him and making him fall against the portal wall. Pushing himself back upright, his hand pressed against a small button on the side of the portal.

As he heard the small click of the button, a worried thought jumped up from deep within his mind. _Could a ghost portal really work?_ And, for just a split second, he truly believed that one could.

That was all it took.

The greatest invention Jack and Maddie Fenton would ever build whirred to life amongst the startled screams of the three teenagers. Danny was swallowed in a flash of painful light.

--In _real life_, heroes are not born, they are _made_.

(end prologue)


	2. There Are No Such Things as Ghosts

_*edited 12/2008*_

**Real Life  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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(chapter 1)

In Which There Are No Such Things as Ghosts

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Sam stared at the creature that stumbled out of the portal, completely transfixed, her heart pounding a million miles a second, terror-driven adrenaline pumping through her body. The thing's skin was savaged and darkened with painful-looking burns. Shockingly white hair stood straight up from its head, greenish energy still sizzling between the spikes. Curls of smoky steam swirled upwards from the ragged remains of its black pants, silver-white shirt, and unbuttoned black jacket.

It collapsed onto the ground, sitting on its feet, and held up its trembling hands. Her mouth was moving, trying to talk, trying to do something – _anything_ – as an unnaturally cold breeze blew down her back. Sam shivered, unable to wrench her eyes away from the human-like creature as it gazed at its palms in silence. When it flipped one of its hands over to examine the back, she caught a glimpse of a harsh, smoldering wound that stretched from wrist to fingers. Just for a second, a flicker of jade lightning zapped around its fingers.

Her back bumped into a table, knocking the random inventions around. Her brain dimly registered the fact that she had been slowly backing away from this creature since it had emerged from the swirling, emerald mass of energy that had once been a messy hole in the wall. At the sound of an invention crashing to the ground it looked up, unnatural green eyes accented by dark bruised circles, focusing on her. She gasped, her eyes widening even further – she could see the the wall _through_ the creature's head.

"Sam?" it muttered faintly. It had an odd reverberation in its voice, almost like it was talking from really far away. Its voice caused the hair on her arms to stand up and her knees trembled as an instinctive desire to run away from this _thing_ flooded through her. But she couldn't look away from the eerie eyes that had captured hers. Somehow… somehow there was something familiar about those eyes…

Suddenly it hit her. "Danny!" she gasped, her hand flying to her mouth in horrified surprise. Beside her, Tucker sank to the ground, a moan escaping from between his lips.

"What?" Danny asked, narrowing his eyes before glancing back down at his hand. "It's so weird, it doesn't even really hurt any more," he added softly, flipping his hand over and over, prodding the angry red burn with his finger.

"D-dude," Tucker stuttered. "I-I think… I think you might be dead."

Danny looked up at them with an arched eyebrow. "What?" he asked again, this time disbelief and humor coloring his tone. "Are you nuts? I'm not dead."

Sam couldn't think of anything to say to that and, from the silence, apparently neither could Tucker. The only thing she could do was point to the mirror on the wall with a trembling finger. Slowly he got to his feet and staggered across the room, his white shoes seeming to hover a tiny bit above the floor. She couldn't help it – she edged away from his chill presence as he passed by them. Tucker, still on the ground, scooted backwards a bit and pressed his back against her legs.

Danny reached the mirror and stared into it, holding perfectly still for the longest of seconds. His fingers were clamped by his sides, his arms shaking visibly.

"I think you're a ghost," Tucker whispered.

Danny shook his head, fizzled hair flying and settling down in a slightly-more normal pattern. "Ghosts don't exist, Tuck." But Sam noticed he couldn't wrench his eyes away from the mirror. He was just gazing at his reflection, shock and denial coloring his voice. Glancing at his friends once over his shoulder, taking in their fearful expressions, he turned back to examine the creature in the mirror. "Ghosts don't exist," he muttered darkly.

"Danny?" she rasped, finally finding her voice again. She had seen the growing terror and panic in his face.

"Ghosts don't exist. I'm not dead," he answered, shaking his head again. Closing his eyes, he clenched his fingers into a tight fist, his whole body beginning to shake. "I'm not dead, I'm not dead, I'm not dead…" he was muttering it over and over, almost like a mantra.

Sam pushed herself away from the table, forcing her feet to take a few steps closer towards him. Ghost or not, this was her best friend. Fear was warring with her brain, her instincts screaming at her to run away as fast as she could. Trembling, she took another step, reaching up her hand to touch his shoulder. "Danny?"

"_I'm not dead!_" he yelled as emerald energy suddenly flared in existence around him. It blazed; its freezing fire scorching Sam's raised hand. As the mirror shattered and inventions all around the room rattled and cascaded from tables in the fury-filled wind that had sprung up in the basement, she lost what little control over her body she had left.

She ran.

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Danny wasn't aware of when his friends left. His eyes closed and he backed away from the mirror, shaking his head desperately. He did _not_ want to believe what he had just seen. He was not a ghost; he was not dead. It wasn't possible.

He clenched his fingers, freezing in place with one thought coursing through his head. If only he could find his heartbeat, then he'd know that he was alive. His whole being was centered on the hopes of him finding that singular sound. He stood perfect still, head tipped to the side, listening in growing terror to the silence that was inside of him. He wanted nothing more than to hear his heart thumping in his chest and to hear the raspy sound of air in his lungs.

As the silence stretched on for an infinitely long moment, his hands started to shake, his toes curled up. He closed his eyes harder, squeezing them shut to the point of pain, hands coming up to block his ears. He wasn't listening hard enough. That had to be the problem.

He wrapped himself in the desire to be human: to be warm and heavy, to feel the comforting rhythms of life swirling around inside of him. "Please," he begged to no one and everyone. "Please…"

Then an instinct that he had possessed for a whole of thirty seconds swam into his head, directing his thoughts, reaching for a place in his mind that was filled with that longed-for life. Danny almost cried out loud as his mind touched it and warmth blasted through him.

A tingling pain slammed into existence in his chest and it rushed around him in all directions like a wave, reaching down to the end of his toes and the tips of his fingers before it rebounded and crashed back together in his heart. There the pain sat, growing in intensity, sending sharp needles of agony ripping through him. Finally it reached a point where Danny didn't think he could take a single moment more when…

_Thump-thump. _The sound of his heart made Danny's already weak legs collapse underneath him and a too-long-held breath gushed out of his lungs. For the longest time, he sat on the floor, reveling in the sudden return of his heartbeat and the ebbing ache, letting air rush in and out of his lungs. Finally, he opened his eyes, looking up into what remained of the cracked mirror and dreading what he would see.

Black hair. Blue eyes. Completely solid. Not a ghost at all.

"What?" he rasped, pushing himself to his feet and carefully stepping over sharp bits of mirror that littered the floor. He gazed at his reflection in amazement for a moment before turning around and staring at the lab.

It was totally trashed. Tables were overturned, inventions scattered in every direction. Two of the shelves on the other side of the room had tipped over and were a chaotic mess. His head swiveled almost against his will as he glanced over at the where the hole in the wall should have been. Instead of a hole, the wall seemed to continue in a mass of swirling green.

He took a step towards the ethereal lights, a hand coming up to brush the foggy surface. It was like touching a cloud. His hand tingled and ached as it held it against the portal into the realm of the afterlife. Fingers became translucent and a huge burn mark slowly appeared on his palm. He gazed at his hand in horrified amazement, watching the tips of the clean suit's sleeves begin to tinge black.

"NO!" he gasped, pushing at the encroaching black. He stumbled away from the table, yanking the white coat off and throwing it across the room. Swept up in his fear, he didn't notice his hand fade back into reality as he yanked the clean suit pants off of his legs and left him in his normal jeans and shirt. Free of the white outfit, he scrambled backwards away from it.

"No, no, no," he panted as he turned to race blindly for the stairs. The forgotten thermos appeared under his foot about half-way across the room and he tripped. Yelping at the pain that sliced through his ankle, he picked up the thermos and tossed it angrily towards the wall. It slapped into the wall inches from the supernatural portal.

Just for a second, he gazed at the swirling clouds. Two eyes gleamed back at him.

Danny's eyes widened in terror. He threw himself to his feet and darted towards the stairs, never noticing that his feet were passing straight through the scattered inventions on the floor.

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Sam sank into her soft bed and choked back desperate sobs. She had raced her shadow home, blown past her startled parents, and then had locked herself into her room. She was sobbing – both from lack of breath and from the terror that was clawing at her mind. Burying her head into her pillows, she didn't give a second thought to the eyeliner and mascara that smeared all over the purple pillow shams. She had seen… she had seen…

Danny was dead.

That shy, blue-eyed boy had been her best friend since kindergarten. The two of them had grown up with each other, laughing and playing their way through all their troubles with Tucker by their side. Danny was the only person who knew all of her secrets, the only person who had never judged her when she had proclaimed herself a gothic vegan. He had always been there to laugh with her and make her smile. He was the only person who had ever seen her truly fall apart and cry.

Now he was dead, and it had been _her fault_.

Almost unaware of what she was doing, she got up and walked across the room, her hands scrabbling at one of the drawers. Fingers curled around a small bottle and she stared at it. 'Celexa' the bottle proudly announced. Her hands shook for a moment as they tightened around the bottle of antidepressants.

Then, with a curse, she threw the bottle across the room. The lid snapped off and small brown pills scattered around her bedroom. She stood still for a moment, tears beginning to slide down her cheeks. Her shaking legs carried her back to the bed and she collapsed onto the quilt.

A sob wrenched itself out of her, breaking the fragile dam that had been holding her together. Her crying became so frantic and hysterical that she couldn't find the room to get a breath in.

There was no doubt in her mind as to whom the blame fell upon: it had been her idea to go into that stupid hole and Danny had resisted. She had known that he would do anything if she asked – that was the level of trust they had in each other – and she had asked.

_She_ had asked. And now he was a _ghost_.

Sam curled up into a tight ball on her bed, cramming a pillow over her face and screaming into it. She didn't know what to do. She knew she ought to go do something… she should tell someone… but she didn't know who. Tears slid unchecked down her cheeks, smearing the remnants of her thick mascara and making little black spots on the sheets. There was no way she could tell the Fentons. They had trusted her and she had gotten their son killed.

Her mind refused to work. With no idea what to do and nobody to turn to, she just continued to lie on her bed. As her manic sobbing degenerated into tortured crying, her brain tormented her by replaying bits of Danny's death over and over.

_The bright flash of light._

_The way he looked when he came out._

_The burned, dead skin._

_The hollow, lifeless eyes._

_The shattering mirror._

She had no idea what had happened to Tucker; she hadn't given him a second thought. For just a moment she wondered where he had gone. She could vaguely remember him racing up the lab stairs behind her. But a flicker of memory passed over her… _a_ _sizzling, smoking hand_… and all thoughts of Tucker were banished as she buried her head back into her pillow.

At some point in the depths of what had to be the darkest night of the year, Sam cried herself to sleep.

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She moaned and rolled over in her warm bed, closing her eyes against the brilliant morning light peaking through her windows. A bird chipped from a tree outside. She stretched and yawned, rolling onto her back before allowing herself to open her eyes. She traced the cracks on the ceiling for a few minutes as she finished waking up. Something was off, but her sleep-muddled brain was having a tough time figuring it out.

It wasn't until she sat up that she noticed what was wrong. She was still dressed, lying on top of her blanket. She rubbed her wrist and gazed around the room, struggling to remember. Her pillows were smeared with black lines from her mascara… she must have been crying…

Memory flooded into her mind and Sam's eyes widened. "Danny!" She leapt up off the bed, her heart racing and her body telling her she needed to do _something_ but her brain refusing to tell her what that something was. Finally she just sat back down on the edge of her bed and shook her head, running a hand over her face. "Danny…"

"Was it even real?" she whispered. "Is Danny a ghost? Ghosts don't exist… right?" She bit her lip and closed her eyes. "That couldn't have really happened." A smile flickered across her face as her heart slowed down its frantic beating. "No, that had to have been a nightmare."

Somewhere deep down inside, she knew that it wasn't just some nightmare, but in the bright morning sunlight it was hard to believe in mortality. "Yeah, it was just a scary dream. Danny'll be at school this morning, just like normal."

She pushed herself to her feet and stumbled towards her bedroom door, hesitating when she noticed it was locked. Her eyes flickered over to the mirror. Her normally frizzy, black-dyed hair was an untamable mess and the remnants of yesterday's makeup were still smeared on her face. A thought slid into her mind – _if it was all just a dream, what's with the makeup and clothes? _– but she buried it almost before it was completely thought.

"Danny's fine. He'll be in class." She nodded, convincing herself before unlocking the door and slipping tiredly down the steps to get breakfast.

Sam's mother, a cheerful and beautiful woman named Pamela, was sitting at the table eating a bowl of cold cereal and reading the newspaper. She glanced up when she heard her daughter enter the kitchen and gasped. "Sammy! What's wrong?"

Sam shook her head and silently grabbed a bowl. "I'm fine," she rasped, her voice still a little raw from crying.

"No you're not," Pamela said as she stood up to examine her only child. "Your eyes are all red and… you've been crying. What happened?"

_A flash of light. Hollow, lifeless eyes_.

Sam blinked back the burning sensation in her eyes. "Nothing," she whispered. "I'm fine."

"It was that Fenton boy, wasn't it," Pamela accused. "I've never liked him, you know. He's got that insane family. If he's hurt you…"

"He didn't hurt me," she flared, suddenly angry. Of all the people to pick on this morning, she chose to pick on him. After that _nightmare_, she couldn't take anymore of it. "He never has, and he never will! Can't you just leave him alone?"

Her mother was quiet for a moment before dropping the subject. "Maybe you should stay home from school today, Sam. I'll call you in sick. You don't look well."

Sam finished pouring herself a bowl of cereal and shook her head. There was no way she wanted to be home today. She wanted to go listen to some mind-rotting lessons at school and not have to think about that God-awful dream she had suffered through last night. "No, I just had a nightmare is all. I'll be fine after I take a shower."

Pamela was silent as she watched her daughter sit down and calmly eat her cereal. "Are you sure, sweetheart?"

Sam nodded and scooped another spoonful of cereal into her mouth.

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Sam moved quickly through the corridors of Casper High school, searching for the familiar black head of her best friend. Actually, either friend would do for her at the moment – she needed some sort of confirmation that last night had been the dream she was praying it had been. Although neither boy was around, the lack of people looking at her like her best friend had just died was a positive.

Outside her first period class, she stopped. Both Danny and Tucker were in her first hour class and going through that door would be the ultimate test. She took another step and hesitated. Her heart was beating faster than usual and she felt a little light headed. What would she do if they weren't there?

The door swung open as one of the other students slumped into the room. Her eyes flickered to the back of the room, glancing at the seats that had been unofficially claimed as 'theirs'. In one seat was a boy with messy black hair and a white T-shirt: Danny. Sam sighed and walked into the classroom, feeling her heart slow down its racing. It _had_ just been a dream.

She slid into the open seat next to the boy that had died in her nightmare. He didn't look up, his hair dangling in his eyes. He was sketching in the margin of his notebook, waiting dismally for school to start. "Danny," she hissed at him.

He looked up. Sam gasped and fought back a shiver. His sky-blue eyes had an impossible, inhuman shine to them, but beyond the strange glow was nothing. His eyes were dead and hollow.

Sam's heart seemed to completely stop and her breath caught in her throat. Danny wasn't alive; she knew deep down in her soul that this _thing_ sitting beside her lacked anything that resembled an actual spirit. He was just gazing at her with those lifeless eyes, sitting too still to be real – frozen – nothing more than a statue.

Then he blinked and broke the spell. "Hey Sam," he grinned. His smile brought his haunting eyes back to life. They glimmered in the light, full of curiosity and spirit.

She started, staring at him in disbelief. There he was, suddenly real as anything and most definitely not dead. What was going on? Had she just imagined that?

"What's wrong?" he asked softly as the bell rang. "You're so white."

Sam couldn't think of what to say as she tried to get her heart to beat again. Danny squinted at her, the life washing out of his eyes again as he leaned towards her and sniffed. "You smell like…" he drifted off before shaking his head and sending her a grin. "Sorry, I'm spazzing today. Do you know what happened to Tucker?"

For the first time, Sam twisted to look at the empty desk behind Danny. Tucker wasn't in school today. Wordlessly she shook her head, but deep inside of her she knew.

Last night hadn't been a nightmare. Something was terribly, horribly wrong.

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Danny dropped his eyes to his notebook at the teacher droned away in the front of the class. By this point, the margins were covered in badly-drawn images of bats and rats and other small creatures. The ferret-like thing he was currently drawing was perched on the empty desk next to a Hispanic girl named Paulina Sanchez. It sat with its translucent head tipped to the side, two orange eyes that seemed to glow with an internal light fixed on the girl. The ferret-creature had been there all class period and nobody had said a thing.

As he put the final few pencil marks on his sketch of the ferret, he let a small smile slip onto his face. "I'm officially insane," he muttered darkly. If it had just been that he was seeing a ferret nobody else was seeing, he might have been able to pass it up as lack of sleep. Or maybe even a by-product of that shock he'd gotten last night. But it wasn't just the ferret-thing, all throughout the school there were other things: see-through shadow-bats that flitted along the ceiling, greenish rats that raced through the hallways and up the walls, and strange blue-red snake-things that curled up in corners and under desks. The entire school was _crawling_ with tiny, intangible creatures.

None of which had been there yesterday, and none of which anybody else seemed to be able to see today. To make it even worse, he could only see the things out of the corner of his eye. The minute he tried to look straight at them they seemed to vanish. He was steadily growing more and more frustrated as he tried not to twitch and glance over at latest shadowy thing that had just fluttered at the edge of his vision.

Danny took a deep breath and let it out slowly, his pencil moving distractedly as he began another sketch – this one of a long, thin creature that had entwined itself under Dash Baxter's desk. Really, the only thing that was keeping him from jumping out of his seat and screaming at the top of his lungs was the steady scrape of his pencil lead on the paper. It was something he could focus on, rather than think about the things flickering at around him.

It was halfway through the sketch that _it_ happened for the fourth time that morning. The paper in front of him seemed to fade and glaze over. He blinked a few times, hoping to clear his eyes, but it didn't help. He sighed – it hadn't helped earlier either. Danny unhappily added this odd happening onto his list of other weird things going on today. The last few times it had vanished within a few heartbeats.

He waited, but the paper and his pencil stayed unfocused. His breath caught in his throat as he suddenly understood that this oddness wasn't going to go away. A blur of green moved just before his eyes and he glanced up.

It took all his willpower to stay in his seat and not scream. Every person in the room had become an unfocused blur of color, the walls and posters a fuzzy mess in the background. Everything seemed to not really be _there_… almost like he could walk straight through things.

But not the creatures – they were all too real, and all too there. The ferret sitting next to Paulina had taken on a stomach-twisting aura as its half-eaten body shifted on the desk. Under Dash's desk, the snake jumped into sickening focus with every maggot and bloody gash showing in the supernatural light. The moldy ferret turned its head to gaze at him with one garnet eye. It opened its mouth and let out a hissing shriek in his direction.

A strangled scream struggled out of his mouth as he flailed away from the creature. He fell out of his chair and slammed into the ground. Above the annoyed snarling hisses of the _things_ in the room, a low sound boomed around him. Danny blinked up at a large tan and blue blur that was standing over him.

The odd sound rumbled again through the air, impossible to make out. Then…

_Blink_

…and everything was back to normal. The blur suddenly flickered into the imposing figure of their vice-principal, Mr. Lancer. "Mr. Fenton!" he yelled in that booming voice.

Danny glanced around. The snake and the ferret were back to their transparent forms, the clock was once again ticking loudly in the dead silence, and all the students in the class were staring at him. Sam's violet eyes were wide and full of worried questions. He licked his lips nervously. "Sorry," he whispered.

The teacher squatted down, looking at his student carefully. "Are you okay, Mr. Fenton?"

Danny's eyes flicked unconsciously towards the creatures that only he could see. Hallucinations. "I… I'm fine," he stuttered.

Mr. Lancer didn't look convinced. "Would you like to go to the nurse? You look a little pale."

Shaking his head, Danny pushed himself to his feet and slipped back into his desk. "I'm fine," he repeated a little more firmly.

The teacher stared at him for a moment before turning around and walking back up to the front of the class. Danny sank down into his seat and let out a shaky breath. He felt a tap on his arm and he looked up to find Sam still watching him with a worried expression on her face. "I'm fine," he mouthed for the third time. Sam's eyes narrowed in disbelief, but she turned back to her notes.

Forcing himself to not look up again, Danny picked up his pencil with fingers that were still shaking. He closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath, trying to settle his impossibly fast heart beat.

As he started sketching again, he failed to notice the fact that one student's gaze had not looked away from him yet. Valerie Gray bit her lip as she studied her classmate. Finally her green eyes flickered over to the empty desk next to Paulina and then down to her notebook. Tiny drawings of half-eaten ferrets were dancing around the edges. With a confused sigh, she continued to doodle.

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He stood up when the bell rang, trying his hardest not to watch the creatures moving around with the students.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a reddish fox slip out through the wall and sniff the air. Beady eyes opened and it fell into step just behind Sam, its nose inches away from Sam's hiking boots. Every few steps the mangy fox would misjudge the distance between its nose and Sam's feet and a boot heel would pass through its head. It wasn't until Sam was quite a few steps ahead of him that he realized he'd stumbled to a stop and was staring at the fox. "Sam..."

"What?" she asked, turning around to glance back at him. Her forehead wrinkled and she looked down at her shoes. "Do I have something on my shoes?" She picked up one of her feet – her boot going through the fox's chest – and checked the bottom of her shoe.

Danny shook his head dazedly. "No… it's…" He just trailed off, giving her a small smile. "It's nothing."

She set her foot back down and sent him an odd look. "Are you alright Danny?"

"Good question," he mumbled, setting back off up the hallway. Sam fell into step next to him and started talking about some history project she needed to work on during study hall next period. Danny, however, was still glancing at the fox that was following her.

Suddenly it happened again. Everything 'real' became slightly transparent and fell out of focus, and all the noises seemed to slip away. Tiny ripples of _something,_ flooding out of all the humans like heartbeats, swirled into existence. Noises – impossible combinations of chitters, hisses, caws, and shrieks – flooded into his ears as dozens of conflicting smells assaulted his nose. Sam, still talking and unaware of what was going on, seemed to be giving off the enchanting smell of rainbows after a spring thunderstorm.

The fox jumped into clear view as he looked right at it for the first time, its bushy tail and quivering ears stiffening as it gazed up at him. Now he could see that the creature's fur was clumped, matted, and falling apart, and there was a gaping, bloody hole in the fox's chest. It made a confused hissing-bark noise.

Danny and the fox stared each other down. The fox made that hiss-bark sound again and something surged through Danny. He knew, somehow, that the fox was _feeding_ off of those strange waves that Sam was giving off. It was an instinctive knowledge that rocked him to his core; something he couldn't deny or explain. He just _knew_. He also knew that he would never let this happen – not to Sam.

From somewhere deep inside of him, a growl built up and slipped out his mouth. It echoed distantly, powerfully. It was a sound that the fox-like creature understood perfectly: stay away. The fox's ears instantly dropped back against its skull and it slithered backwards a few feet, crouched as close to the ground as possible.

Then it vanished, along with almost every other creature he could see. Danny blinked, the 'real' world dropping back into focus and he glanced up. Sam, who was still talking about whether or not she should do her report on Jane Addams or Eugene Victor Debs, was completely oblivious of what had happened.

"…Do you think so, Danny?"

He blinked at her. "What?"

She rolled her eyes. "I didn't think you were listening. What's _really _wrong?" She had her hands on her hips, her normal gruff exterior exposed for the world to see, but Danny knew her well enough that he could see the worry and concern flickering in her eyes. "What happened last…"

"Nothing. I'm fine," he interrupted.

She stared at him for a few seconds, obviously struggling with her desire to drag answers out of him. But finally she just turned and started up the hallway again, silent.

Danny trailed after her until their paths diverged. He hesitated outside his classroom, watching her walk away. A shadow-bat fluttered down and swooped around her head for a moment before vanishing through a hallway wall. "What's wrong with me?" he whispered.

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Sam couldn't keep her eyes off of him. He would vacillate between normal Danny and dead Danny at the drop of a hat. Normal Danny was the same laughing, easy going guy she had grown up with. He smiled and joked and wrote her notes when he thought the teacher wasn't looking. The other Danny was creepy. He would lose all the light in his eyes and gaze off into nothingness. Sometimes he would seem to be following some invisible _thing_ with his eyes, watching whatever-it-was drift around the room.

The other Danny never looked _at_ her - he always looked _through_ her, like she wasn't really there. Whenever they had to sit next to each other, he got too close. He would lean into her and watch her carefully, never really smiling. She had eaten lunch with this other Danny. Well, she had eaten her salad and Danny had stared through her silently, not saying a word or bothering to touch the goop on his lunch tray. All throughout lunch, it had taken most of her willpower to stop from turning around to see what it was he was looking at every few minutes. She knew that would be nothing there.

All it would take was a blink, sometimes, for that light to shine through and for the normal Danny to be back. He'd grin at her, shake his head with a small laugh, and ask her if she was okay. Each and every time, she'd simply nod her head and say nothing. He'd just look at her for a moment, concern flickering in his eyes, before walking away.

She never managed to talk about what had happened last night.

The end of the day was approaching when she finally dropped into the desk next to him for Language Arts. Normal Danny flicked a smile in her direction, rolling his eyes as the teacher took roll. When the class started, normal Danny doodled away in his notebook.

Sam gazed at him during this last class, not even bothering to pretend to listen. She was still trying to figure out what was going on with him. He was holding his pencil loosely in his fingers, wiggling the pencil eraser back and forth distractedly as he half-listened to the teacher.

She sat up a little straighter, wrinkling her forehead. Something strange was happening to Danny's restless hand. It had started at his fingertips – a vague translucency, the color seeming to drain from his fingers. Slowly and inexplicably, the odd colorlessness oozed along his fingers. When it reached the part of his hand that held the pencil, the pencil dropped straight _through_ his hand and clunked onto the desk.

It took a moment for him to notice, but when the lack of pencil caught his attention, he glanced down. The impossible translucency had spread nearly to his wrist. His eyes widened and he thrust his hand under his desk. To Sam's surprise, his hand went straight _through_ the desk on the way. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he finally brought his hand back onto the desk, he examined it carefully before grabbing his pencil again.

Suddenly he wrinkled his nose, glancing over at her with those dead eyes. Other Danny was back, and he _knew_ she had seen something. They locked eyes – haunted blue into worried purple. Sam was the one that looked away first, taking a shaky breath. Her insides felt cold… almost like someone had taken a dead hand and raked through her intestines.

Glancing at him one last time, Sam noticed that he hadn't looked away from her yet. His eyes were glittering with worry, fear, and confusion.

What had happened to him?

--In _real life_, there are no such things as ghosts.

(end chapter 1)


	3. Truth is Often Stranger Than Fiction

_*edited 12/2008*_

**Real Life  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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(chapter 2)

In Which Truth is Often Stranger than Fiction

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"We need to talk," Sam announced when she cornered Danny at his locker after the last period. Other Danny was still there, gazing at her with hollow disinterest.

"About what?" he asked, grabbing his books and stuffing them roughly into his backpack.

"About what happened last night."

Danny shook his head sharply. "_Nothing_ happened last night." He threw his pack onto his back and headed out of school. "It was just some nightmare." Then, under his breath in a tone he didn't think she could hear, he added, "One that won't stop."

"You got zapped by your parents' ghost-window-thing!" Sam jogged a bit to catch up to him. "Tucker and I saw it. You were a ghost."

"Ghosts don't exist," Danny muttered darkly, "so obviously that's not what happened."

Sam blew through the doors at school, fixing him with a glare. "So last night was all just some dream, huh?"

Danny nodded, his haunted eyes flickering to meet hers. For a second he stared at her oddly, leaning imperceptibly towards her. With another sharp shake of his head, he turned away from her and answered her question. "Nothing happened. Everything is just peachy."

"Peachy?" Her word came out a lot harder than she had meant it to.

He sighed, running his hand through his hair and fixing his eyes on his shoes. "Yes. Peachy. Do you know where Tucker is today?"

Sam wrinkled her nose at the forced tone of his voice. "He thinks you died last night. He probably didn't want to come to school today."

"Why did you come to school?" Danny asked quietly, not looking up from the sidewalk as he moved as quickly as he could away from the school.

"I tried to convince myself that it was all just a dream."

Danny scowled and picked up the pace, pulling ahead of her. "Yes. Just a dream. That sounds good."

"So you _didn't_ drop a pencil through your hand today." Sam watched as he faltered and glanced back at her before dropping his gaze back to the concrete. "And you _haven't_ been acting weird all day. Because it was all just some _dream_."

He was silent, slowing down to let her catch up.

"Danny, something happened last night. You can't deny it."

"I don't want to think about it," he confessed softly to his shoes. "Today's just been so _weird_…" he trailed off, closing his eyes for a moment.

Sam watched him fight some sort of internal debate, trying to decide what to tell her. "Let's go find Tucker," she finally said. "Together we can figure anything out, right? The loser trio together again?" She shook her head sourly as she wondered what she had done to stop him from looking up at her.

He opened his eyes with a sad smile and nodded, still refusing to meet her eyes.

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Danny turned the corner towards Tucker's house, fighting to keep from glancing over at Sam. The world was flickering around him dizzily and the concrete sidewalk kept jumping in and out of focus. On the good side, all those creepy little creatures that infested the school were nowhere to be seen. He had only spotted two things out of the corner of his eye the entire two mile walk to Tucker's house. On the not-so-good side, he kept smelling Sam.

It wasn't that she smelled bad – Sam hardly ever smelled _bad_. No, it was that she smelled impossibly wonderful. Every time the world slipped out of focus, he could see those vague ripples in the air around her and he could smell whatever it was that swirled around her. It was the smell that enchanted him; full of rainbows after a thunderstorm and the giddy feeling of dancing in the rain. It wasn't _really_ a smell, but smell was the best word he could come up with to describe it. It was more like something that attacked every one of his senses at once: he could smell it, he could taste it, and he could _feel _it deep inside of him.

What made it worse was the fact that every-once-in-a while her fresh smell would change. Sometimes it would be joined by others scents that would slide in and out of her 'normal' smell. The warm, gooey smell of marshmallows at a campfire usually accompanied the smiles that would flit across her face. The wet smell of a dog leaning against your leg seemed to go with the concerned glances she sent him. Each time her scent drifted into his nose, he had to deal with something _new_.

He couldn't understand what was going on and fear was trying to claw at his heart. Anxiety twisted in his stomach every time the world dropped out of focus and Sam's monologue tumbled into something indistinct. He hated those brief moments that pulled him out of the real world.

But. His eyes swiveled over to the blurry form of Sam, tracing the rainbow scented twirls in the air around her. They pinged and fizzed pleasantly as they brushed against his nerves and left him trembling. He found himself watching the ripples as they neared his arm, fighting to keep from holding his breath in anticipation. The feeling was impossibly addictive. Each one of those ripples made him want to stay like this – unreal and dreamlike.

When he finally blinked and the world slammed back into reality, he found himself at Tucker's door. Although a tiny bit of his mind screamed that they had walked far too fast and he wouldn't be able to feel those ripples of Sam anymore, he quietly raised his hand and knocked.

Tucker answered the door, his hazel eyes fixing on Danny as his face drained of color and he collapsed onto the floor. "Tucker!" Danny knelt down beside his friend, trying to make sure he was all right. For a moment, the world felt like it was going to blur out, but Danny fought it off.

"I think he fainted," Sam said softly behind him. A hand pressed against his shoulder as she leaned over to look down at Tucker.

"I heard some… Tucker!" A small woman wearing a flour-covered apron appeared in a door frame deeper in the house. Janet Foley hurried over to her son and brushed Danny out of the way. "What happened?"

Danny glanced up at Sam before repeating what she had just said. "I think he fainted."

Janet's fingers flickered over Tucker's face. "Would you go get a cold washrag?" she asked Sam as she took off Tucker's glasses and hat. "It's no wonder he fainted – it must have been a shock to see you at the door. He's been moping and crying all day saying you were a ghost, Danny."

Danny winced, but Janet continued on without noticing. "I got worried after a bit, he can be so adamant you know, that I called your parents. They said you were fine and had just left for school. Most definitely not dead, although your father got off on a tangent about how you could be a ghost and then he started telling me all about this experiment that they got working – some kind of portal thing. I told Tucker, but he just wouldn't believe me. He's been thinking he killed you all day."

Sam returned, holding out the rag. Janet put it on her son's forehead and smoothed his short, curly hair. Glancing up at Danny, she studied him for a second. "You know, Danny, that I while may not understand or believe in what your parents do, I've always known you were a good kid."

Danny looked at her in confusion. "What are you getting at?"

"You're like a second son to me; you being over here almost more than Tucker is. I've watched you grow up from a little child and I've fixed more of your scrapes and bruises than I ever cared to." She fixed him with a sharp glare. "And if you ever scare me with all this talk of you dying again, I will personally see to it that the reports of you dying are _not_ overstated, we clear?"

Danny let a smile appear on his face. "Crystal, Mrs. Foley."

"Good."

On the floor, Tucker groaned. He cracked open one eye and fixed it on Danny. "You're no dead," he whispered.

"Not yet." Danny answered. "Sorry to tell you I managed to survive the school day. Again."

Elbows pressed into his shoulders as Sam leaned over him again and rested her chin on his head. For a moment, a tingling feeling of not-quite-there-ness swirled through him, but he pushed it out of his mind. Sam, oblivious to the fight going on in Danny's head, said, "What, did you have a nightmare about him getting zapped by his parent's ghost-window-thing?"

Tucker's mouth moved silently for a few moments.

Janet handed her son his glasses and hat, pushing herself to her feet. "Get him to the couch and take it easy today, would you?"

Danny and Sam nodded as she went back into the kitchen.

Tucker finally found his voice. "_What happened!"_ he yelped. "You were…"

Clamping a hand over his mouth, Sam gave him a pointed glare. "Shut up for a moment and we'll explain."

They helped him get on the couch, him protesting the help the entire way. Sam settled into the big armchair and Danny dropped onto the ground, crossing his legs. With one last glance at the doorway Janet Foley had vanished through, Danny leaned forwards. Personally, he'd had enough of the weirdness that had been going on today. Together they had solved every problem that had cropped up – they could fix this one. Crossing his fingers, he softly said, "Okay, what do you guys remember?" He glanced from one to the other.

"You didn't talk about it at school today?" Tucker asked. He seemed surprised when they both shook their heads. "You guys talk about everything."

Sam sighed and rolled her eyes. "No, we didn't." She hesitated before answering Danny's question. "I remember you going into the ghost portal and this bright light appearing. Then you stumbled out and you were all… ghost-ish."

"There's no such thing as ghosts," Danny interrupted stubbornly.

"Yeah, we know you don't believe in ghosts, but I said 'ghost-ish'. As in, _not_ a ghost but _like_ a ghost." She glared at him for a moment, waiting for him to protest. "There was this really weird… feeling."

"It was cold," Tucker added. "And everything seemed really dark."

Sam nodded. "When you looked in the mirror and saw what you looked like, you got angry or scared or whatever. There was this really weird surge of energy…"

"Like lightning, only not," Tucker muttered, "green and cold and bright."

Danny's head was following their bouncing conversation, his eyes narrowing. Butterflies were dancing in his stomach as he listened to their account of the nightmare from last night.

"And then you broke the mirror." Sam bit her lip.

Tucker finished. "We ran away. We thought you were dead, man." His eyes sparkled in the light. "I thought you were dead all _day_. I thought…" he trailed off, blinking rapidly and staring at the floor.

"What happened to you?" Sam asked quietly. Both of them gazed at him, waiting.

"I don't know," he said softly. "I don't really remember much of what happened." He gazed at his fingers, unwilling to look at them. "I think I hit something in the portal – a button or something." He flipped his hand over, staring at the palm where the bizarre burn wound had been. "I remember, after the light faded and all that pain stopped, everything being cold and so quiet. The next thing I remember is the sound of the mirror hitting the ground and you guys running up the stairs. It was so weird, I couldn't hear anything else." His voice was hoarse as he tried to explain. "I couldn't hear myself breathing, or my heart beating, or anything. I panicked." He glanced up at them. "I'm sorry I scared you."

"Maybe it was just a temporary thing," Tucker said when Danny was silent for too long. "You got blasted with so much energy that it manifested itself somehow. Maybe you're all better now."

Danny looked up, disbelief easy to read in his eyes. "I had green eyes and white hair, Tucker. And then there was this weird feeling." The world drifted out of focus for a heartbeat, but he gritted his teeth and forced everything back to normal, wrinkling his nose at the two smells that has assaulted his nose for that brief moment. "It was this spot of warmth in the middle of nothingness. Warm and heavy and familiar. The next thing I knew I was back to myself." He gestured at his black hair and blue eyes. "And then I went to bed," he finished quickly.

Sam narrowed her eyes and Danny winced. He knew she would catch the fact that he was skipping a rather large portion of what had happened last night. In reality, he hadn't gotten any sleep last night. He didn't want to talk about it and thankfully she didn't press him for it. "A spot of warmth in the middle of nothingness?" she repeated.

Nodding slowly, Danny closed his eyes, remembering the feelings that had flooded through him the previous night. "It was like everything was so cold and distant and free, and I didn't have to worry about anything." His voice was quiet as he spoke, his mind not really on what he was saying. Those same feelings swirled up inside of him, cool and powerful. "I could do anything or go anywhere, I was so powerful. Nothing could stop me…"

Suddenly a bright flash of light filled the room, forcing his two friends to shut their eyes. A cold feeling swept through the room like a distant heartbeat, and then all was quiet. Danny, after an impossibly silent moment, let his eyes flicker open. Down in his lap were two sizzled, vaguely transparent hands. All the normal sounds had vanished from around him – there was no comforting thump of a heart in his chest or rasp of air in his lungs.

His eyes closed in desperation. "No, no, no, no," he whispered to himself, "Not again, not again…" This could _not_ be real. He brought his hands up to his face and pressed against his eyes with cold fingers.

"So…" a distant voice slid into his ears. It sounded like the speaker was talking though a long tube. "I guess it wasn't so temporary." Danny opened his eyes and glanced up at Tucker. His form was blurry and unreal to Danny's eyes, swirling with the warm smell of an ancient, musty library.

Danny glanced back down at his hands. His hands were startlingly real to him, just a little transparent. It felt like he was the only 'real' thing in the room, like he could just walk through things like they were just a mirage. For a moment, a feeling of vertigo swept through him as he thought about falling through the floor. He felt himself starting to sink through the air and quickly pressed the thought out of his head. He focused on staying right where he was. "Crap," he breathed. "What's going on?"

"We need to get out of here," another voice hissed indistinctly. "We need to hide!" Danny flicked a glance over at the blur that he figured was Sam. She seemed to be looking over at the kitchen door. Her normal smell was flecked with the metallic tang of metal scraping against metal. Danny blinked in surprise as something clicked in his mind. All day he had been trying to figure out what these smells were, and now it seemed stupidly obvious. This new smell… was _fear_. She was afraid?

Her words finally funneled into his brain. "Mrs. Foley," he said softly in understanding. She couldn't see him like this. Sam was right – they needed to get out of here.

"The old willow in the park," Tucker said. Danny looked over at him as Tucker yanked open the hallway closet and pulled out a large blur of red. He threw it at Danny and yelled, "Going to the park, I'll take it easy and be back by curfew!"

Danny stared down at the red thing that had settled to the ground next to him, squinting and tipping his head to the side. He couldn't focus on it to figure out what it was. A big, red blanket maybe? Reaching out to pick it up, his fingers slid right through it. He froze with his fingers inside the red thing, then slowly moved his hand back and forth. It didn't feel like _anything_. The 'mirage' theory from earlier danced through his mind.

A third voice screamed something indistinct. All their voices sounded so alike and hard to understand. It was like he had just been dropped into an alien land. Danny closed his fingers and pulled his hand back to his chest, fighting the panic and terror that was rushing into his head. His whole body was trembling in disbelief. "What's going on?" he murmured, feeling tears beginning to prickle in his eyes.

"Put it on!" a voice hissed at him.

Danny felt the musty library smell drift over him and dismally figured that Tucker was the one talking. The fact that he couldn't tell who was talking by listening to their voices sent a tendril of dread into his mind. "Put it on?" he whispered. "Put _what_ on?"

Nobody seemed to hear him. "It's just my old rain coat, Danny – it'll hide you. Now put it on!"

Wordlessly Danny reached out and racked his fingers through the red blur. The rain coat didn't move at all.

A green and orange blur smelling of old books suddenly settled down in front of him. A twinge of a scent – looking at ants through a magnifying glass – swirled through Danny for a moment as Tucker studied the coat and Danny's hand. _Fascination_ was what Danny's mind informed him went with that smell. "You can't touch it? You're out of phase from us? But you're sitting on the floor – how are you doing that?"

Danny shook his head. Somewhere in his head, _something_ supplied him with the answer to that question. It was the same something that told him not to lean out over the edge of a cliff or not to kick a hive of buzzing bees. He relinquished his hold on his desire to stay still and watched the mirage-like floor drift away from him. He was _floating_.

"How are you doing that?" Tucker repeated in awe.

Danny shrugged helplessly. He had no idea how he was doing it – just like he had no idea how he knew what those smells were. He just… did.

The Tucker-blur suddenly flinched and the old book smell was tainted with the whisper of scales against a hard floor. Danny blinked, wondering why his friend was suddenly afraid. Then a new smell, one of warm cookies on a cold day, swirled into his nose. His head tracked towards the aroma and he found himself staring in the direction of Tucker's kitchen. The smell was getting stronger.

Smells were people, Danny realized in a burst of horror. That smell meant that someone was coming and it was most likely Mrs. Foley. Tucker must have heard something and knew she was coming too. Dread flickered through him as he remembered the quiet threat Mrs. Foley had given him earlier about finding out that he had died. Ripples swirled on the edges of his vision as both Tucker's and Sam's smells twisted with fear and anxiety.

"I gotta get out of here," Danny whispered, turning to Sam. He raised his voice slightly to make sure she heard him. "Park, old willow tree. Meet me there, okay?" He waited for the black and cream blur to nod before he relinquished his hold on the air and let himself drop towards the floor. Despite his half-expectation for his feet to touch against the floor and stop his descent, he passed through the carpet and into the basement. He didn't even feel it.

He hovered just under the floorboards long enough to hear the cookie-smelling voice say, "I said take out the trash when you go, Tucker, please," before he hesitantly started to make his way to the park. He wondered distantly if he would be able to even find the tree when everything was so blurred and impossible to see.

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Tucker dug his hands into his pockets as he walked next to Sam. He liked things to be very solid and predictable… and this ghost thing had hair standing on end. A large part of his mind was still arguing about the fact that ghosts don't exist, but the rest of his mind was dead set on looking at the facts. Danny was so transparent that he was practically invisible, he could defy gravity, and he had flown _through the floor_.

That last one was the kicker. Up until that point, Tucker had been more than happy to believe that Danny had been abducted by aliens or had been transmuted into some alternate form of life. Those would have made sense – but not even aliens could pass through floors. That was something strictly on the paranormal side of the supernatural.

"This would be so much easier if it was just aliens," Tucker muttered.

Sam rolled her eyes. "You and your alien theories."

He shot her a glance, but didn't jump into his normal argument about the existence of aliens. It was so obvious that aliens were around, but Sam denied every last bit of evidence. Now, however, was not the time to be arguing about extraterrestrials. "I'm just saying this would be easier if it was aliens, not that it _was_ aliens, okay?"

"What do you think is going on?"

Tucker let his mind drift for a few minutes, going over all the facts that he had in his mind. No matter how many ways he put the pieces together, they always formed the same picture. "I still think he's a ghost."

"But how do you explain him still looking normal all day?"

He shrugged. "I have no clue, but how else do you explain it? We could see straight through him, Sam! He was _flying_ through the _floor_."

"You have spent the past handful of years teasing me about believing in ghosts, and now suddenly you think ghosts exist?"

"I only teased you about believing in ghosts because you were always on my case about believing in aliens! Besides, I believe what I see. I saw a ghost." Tucker looked around the mostly deserted park. "Now, I'm not sure about _other_ ghosts, but I'm almost ready to believe that Danny is one."

"But he can't be a ghost. I mean, he's not dead, right?" Sam glanced over at him, worry in her eyes.

"Well, he wasn't dead when he walked into my house," Tucker said slowly. "But he sure seems to be dead _now_, doesn't he? That's really weird. You can't be dead and alive at the same time, that's physically impossible. You also can't be half-dead. So what would he be?"

Tucker listened to Sam sigh as he mumbled his theory to her. This was the best way for him to figure things out, and even though he knew she hated listening to him ramble, she would have to listen to it this once. He needed to figure this out.

"I mean," he continued, "he's a ghost part of the time and a human part of the time. I'd say he's half-ghost, half-human, but that just sounds stupid. That'd be like saying something is half fire and half ice. They're polar opposites."

He glanced over at Sam and watched her expression cloud over. He knew that she wanted him to tell her that her best friend wasn't dead and that everything would be fine, but he couldn't – not and be truthful. "There's just not a word for someone who's dead only some of the time. I mean, zombie is about as close as we come, and really that's not right. He's something else, you know?"

Making a noncommittal sound to answer his question, Sam sped up a bit and left Tucker behind. On top of the hill, an ancient willow stood swaying in the gentle breeze. It's impossibly long branches dangled down to the ground and formed a sort of living cave in the middle of an otherwise treeless park. This tree had been their meeting spot for years.

Tucker trailed behind, continuing to mutter to himself. "I wonder how he got to be like this. He got electrocuted, yeah, but why did he end up in this weird sometimes-dead-sometimes-not state? It must've had something to do with the energy that zapped him. Maybe the energy that was killing him kept him alive…"

He watched Sam push the leaves out of the way and slip out of view. His feet hesitated, his hazel eyes gazing at the tree and the secrets it held. This was his last chance to turn and walk away from all of this. Down in the pit of his stomach, he knew that the three of them were about to get into something extremely deep, something they wouldn't be able to back out of when it got to be too much. His whole life was going to change when he walked under those sheltering tree branches.

And then, of course, there was that awful feeling that had settled into him when Danny had turned into a ghost in his house. It was like he was suddenly insignificant, like he was prey or something… Shaking his head to clear the thoughts and doubts out of the way, he moved the leaves out of the way and stepped into the cool shadows of the willow tree.

Sam had her arms wrapped tightly around herself and her violet eyes were scanning the seemingly empty space. Tucker stepped up beside her and felt something touch his heart. A shiver slid through him and his eyes flickered around. He felt like he was being watched by a very powerful predator. "Danny?" he called softly.

There was no response. Sam shuddered and pressed back against him. Tucker took a deep breath and put his hand on Sam's shoulder. "Sam," he whispered to her, pulling her slightly towards him. Every fiber of his body was telling him to get out of there.

Suddenly Sam stiffened. Right in front of them, a white-haired figure appeared. Danny was sitting cross-legged in mid air, the ratted and overly-large black jacket dangling below him. He had his hands folded and pressed against his lips, his supernatural eyes gazing past them, apparently struggling with something in his mind. "Sorry," he whispered, "I didn't see you."

Tucker's foot slid backwards instinctively at the echoing sound of his friend's voice. Long-buried instincts screamed that _this_ was the predator he had felt earlier. Sam stepped away from him and walked over to where Danny was hovering. "You can be invisible," Sam said with a forced smile, "that's… neat."

"Yeah," Danny said gamely, his smile vanishing almost before it had appeared, "neat." The small sparkle of life that had been in his eyes vanished, leaving them blank and lifeless. His eyes flickered over to meet Tucker's for a moment.

Tucker forced himself not to move under the onslaught of his screaming mind. He pushed it aside – just like he had earlier at his house – and tried to focus on being a friend. This was Danny. He moved his feet and slipped past Sam, settling down against the willow's trunk. "I've been thinking," he said after a moment.

As Sam's warm body dropped down next to his, Danny turned to look at him. A brush of energy flitted through the shadows, fizzing against Tucker's nerves. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, shoring up his defenses against what he figured was going to happen next. "I think you should tell your parents."

"Tell them?" Danny hissed, his voice echoing like he was standing in an empty room rather than under a willow tree. The chill breeze that flicked his nerves swirled angrily and Tucker had to press his back against the tree trunk to stop himself from getting up and running. "Are you nuts?!"

Tucker tried to tell himself that this fear was irrational – Danny wasn't going to hurt them – but he could hear his voice tremble slightly when he continued. "They're ghost experts, Danny. I can't even figure out what you _are_, much less how to fix it. Maybe they can."

Danny sank through the air until he was just inches above the ground. Hollow, green eyes stared at them. He shook his head. "No."

"Why not?" Sam asked, a quaver having worked its way into her voice too.

Electric eyes focused on the ground. "And have them fear me too?" Danny's voice was so quiet that he could barely be heard over the supernatural moaning just under his words. It was like every time he spoke, he was opening up a gateway to Hell itself, the shrieks and wails of pain and torture echoing distantly on his voice.

"They wouldn't…" Sam started.

"No." Danny looked up at them. "I can smell…" he trailed off, biting his lip. "I have _eyes_," he finally said, "and I can _see_ that you're afraid of me." For a second he was quiet. "I don't want my parents to be afraid of me."

"They're not going to…"

Danny interrupted Sam again with a sharp, "No. I thought about it all day and I'm not going to tell them. Not until I get this figured out." His eyes drifted back down to his fingers. "When I figure this out…"

Tucker studied his friend quietly as Danny picked at his fingers, mumbling to himself. "What if they can help?" Tucker asked.

Shaking his head, Danny snorted softly. "They've never invented anything that's ever worked on a supernatural level… except that stupid ghost portal. They're not going to be able to help." His hands dropped into his lap. "I can figure this out without them."

Sam pushed away from the willow trunk and crawled over towards Danny. Tucker watched in amazement as she got closer and closer, finally stopping when she was just inches away. He was having a tough time sitting still this far away – he couldn't imagine what it would be like to be that close. Danny looked up, his supernatural eyes unfocused as he stared at her. "Danny," she said.

Danny was totally frozen, his eyes only half-open. Tucker leaned forwards a bit, watching as Danny's pupils dilated and he tilted his head to the side. He looked totally entranced; almost like he was being drugged. Tucker's eyes flickered from Danny to Sam and back as a theory sparked in his brain.

"Danny!" she said sharply, but the ghost didn't respond.

"Sam," Tucker said softly, "back away from him a little."

The Goth twisted around and sent him a glare. "No, he's my friend…"

"Sam," Tucker interrupted, "please." After a moment of silent arguing, Sam slipped backwards a few feet. Tucker turned his attention back to Danny, trying to see if his theory was right. Danny was blinking and quietly shaking his head, drifting a bit farther away from Sam with an odd look in his eyes.

Tucker dropped back against the tree trunk and bit his lip in thought. What had Sam done that had caused a reaction like that? Was it something that _Sam _did or was it something that _humans _did? As he wrestled with his questions, he stared at his best friend, who had gone from gazing distractedly at Sam to looking over his shoulder.

Danny wrinkled his forehead, twisting his whole body around to gaze off into the tree branches. "What is that?" he asked.

"What is what?" Sam crawled a little closer to Danny, her face dancing with concern.

Tucker nodded as Danny suddenly glanced at her and actually slid through the air to keep space between them. There was definitely something about Sam that had Danny reacting. But what?

"It's cold," Danny was whispering, "like a cold heartbeat…" He drifted forwards and vanished through the tree branches.

The two humans slipped through the branches a beat behind him. Tucker grabbed Sam's shoulder and yanked her to a stop when he noticed that Danny hadn't gone much past the safety of the willow. Until he figured out what was up between them, he didn't want Sam to get too near. Their eyes scanned the nearly empty park.

Danny pointed towards a small group of teenage girls that were wandering down a path at the bottom of the hill. "That," he said softly.

"The girls?" Sam asked.

"No," Danny shot them a disbelieving look, "the flying octopus."

Tucker blinked, glancing back down at the girls. There was no flying octopus. "Um…" he started, but Danny didn't seem to hear him. Danny was slowly floating through the air towards the gaggle of girls. When he drifted out of the shadow of the tree and into the sunshine, he instantly became almost impossible to see – his translucent form vanishing in the bright light.

"Where are you going?" Sam hissed, "Get back here."

Down on the path, one of the girls suddenly collapsed onto the ground. Tucker tightened his grip on Sam's shoulder and both of them stared down at the fallen girl. "What happened?"

"The octopus," his wisp of a friend replied softly, his eyes focused on the girls.

For a beat, Tucker was silent. "There really is a flying octopus? Is it a ghost?"

Danny shook his head. "There's no such thing as ghosts." He sounded distracted and distant, like his mind was somewhere else. Tucker took a few steps closer to his friend, wrinkling his forehead in confusion when he noticed that Danny seemed to have his eyes closed and was… sniffing?

"Do something, Danny," Sam said suddenly.

Green eyes opened and he glanced back at her. "Me?" he asked softly, his eyes dull and haunted. "Why me?"

"You're the ghost," she answered gruffly.

Danny shook his head. "There's no such thing as ghosts," he muttered one last time. Twisting around, he stalked off through the park, his translucent form vanishing from sight after only a few meters in the bright autumn sunlight.

"So? Are you going to do something?" Sam yelled at the seemingly empty path.

Danny's voice, dead and chilling, echoed around them. "No."

--In _real life_, truth is often stranger than fiction.

(end chapter 2)


	4. Things Aren't Always as They Seem

_*edited 12/2008*_

**Real Life  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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(chapter 3)

In Which Things Aren't Always as They Seem

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"Tucker, we have to do something," Sam said, her gaze locked on the girls that were crowding around the one who had collapsed.

"Do what? We can't see this flying octopus thing." He glanced from her to the girls and then back.

Sam was biting her lip, apparently thinking hard. "But we need to do _something_. We know what's wrong."

"How do you fight something you can't hear, can't see, can't touch, and _you don't know is really there_?" Tucker crossed his arms and mentally dug in his heels. He wasn't going to go fight a ghost! That was for people that were brave and athletic and a more than a little insane. He wasn't any of those three.

"It's got to be there. Danny said it was."

Tucker leaned closer to her. "You sure? Just between us, I don't think Danny's really been _himself_ today. He could be seeing things."

Sam glared at him for a moment before setting off down the path. "Maybe we can distract it. How do you distract a ghost?"

Hesitating, he called after her, "Why would you _want_ to?" but his feet were already moving. "Stupid invisible ghost ectoplasm octopus thing," he groused. "Stupid ectoplasmic octopus. Ecto-octopus. Ectopus." He kicked a stone off into the park, not caring where it landed, not watching it stop in midair like it had just been caught by an invisible hand. "Stupid ectopus."

Tucker was just a few steps behind Sam when they reached the place where the girls were huddled. Instead of what he had expected – the girls comforting their fallen comrade – they seemed to be ignoring her. All the girls were curled up on the ground, crying softly, wrapped up in their own miseries. Although the prone girl was obviously still alive, her friends were acting like she had just died.

Glancing around apprehensively, Tucker studied the area. It was a clear, sunny autumn day with no sign of any sort of ghosts or aliens or anything out of the ordinary. But despite the warmth and cheerfulness of the day, an odd sensation was sinking into his chest. His heart was murmuring that something extremely awful had just happened. Rubbing his arm with one of his hands, he tried to shake off the feeling of panic and despair.

"Go away!" Sam shouted suddenly, making Tucker jump. One of the girls, teary gray streaks of mascara trailing down her cheeks, looked up at her in confusion. Tucker sent her a small smile but Sam paid no attention to her. "Ghost! Leave us alone!" When nothing happened, Sam glanced over at him.

"It feels like a funeral," Tucker whispered. For some reason, it felt sacrilegious to speak loudly.

"The ghost is doing it," Sam said sourly. "How do we get rid of it?"

"We don't," he muttered darkly, stuffing his hands into his pockets and trying to shake off the depressing atmosphere. "It's a ghost."

"Maybe…" Sam trailed off, looking around, "maybe it's attached to something – like an anchor. Maybe if we destroy its anchor it'll leave. Or maybe it's being drawn here by something. Or maybe it was sent here for some reason."

"Or maybe it's just here because it's here," Tucker added. "Face it, we know nothing _about_ ghosts. We don't even know where to start."

"We could exorcise it."

Tucker snorted, crossing his arms and glancing around uncomfortably. "Isn't that demons and devils?"

Sam stared at him for a moment. "Can't it work for ghosts too?"

Tucker shrugged. "Come on, Sam. There's never been a ghost _attack_ in Amity Park. Nobody's ever been hurt." He sighed, wanting desperately to get out of here. A strange, dead feeling was curling around his heart. "We can't _do _anything. Let's just go, okay?"

For a moment, Sam was silent. "It's got to be here for a reason, Tucker. There's a reason for everything. So, what makes this place different from everywhere else?" She continued to gaze at him, anxiety appearing in her violet eyes. "Tucker… please. We need to do something."

Tucker studied his feet for a moment while his head warred over his loyalty to Sam and his desire to run. When he finally spoke, he didn't look up at her. "The only thing I can think of is this weird feeling."

"It's like my grandmother just died," Sam whispered.

Tucker nodded. "Yeah." Both of them looked up into the bright, cloudless sky. "But how does that help us?"

They were still staring up there when they saw _something_. It sparkled, wavered, flickered just at the edges of their vision. A flash of green, a swish of something long and pliable. "What was that?" Tucker gasped, ducking instinctively.

"The ghost," Sam hissed. A wave of cold, salty air washed over them as a car-sized octopus shimmered into view for a heartbeat. The thing hissed and cracked its beak, the sound like a rolling thunderclap that drove a spike straight into their souls. Freezing, liquid ectoplasm dripped off the creature like water. Then it was gone, but the smell and the feel were still there. The unseen monster was lurking just over their heads, tentacles ready to wrap around unprotected throats. The girls screamed and cowered, covering their heads with their hands.

"Run," Tucker breathed, unable to take his eyes off the place where the ghost had been. His breath caught in his throat. "Run!" he managed to croak, twisting around on his foot and trying to move. Tripping, he sprawled onto the ground next to the girl who had fainted earlier. He rolled over in time to see most of the girls stumble to their feet and scatter. Sam was in a half-crouch, her eyes still scanning the skies, refusing to move.

It was back, just a suddenly as it had vanished. A wave of fear, palpable and loud as a drum, smashed into them, pulsing like the heartbeat of the dead. A large tentacle, covered in suckers, whipped through the air and snatched Sam off of her feet. It wrapped around her middle, the sharp edges of the suckers digging into her skin as it lifted her into the air. Another flew through the air and latched onto Tucker's ankle, dragging him through the grass. His glasses flew off of his face, throwing everything into an unfocused blur.

"DANNY!" Tucker screamed just before his face was slammed into the ground. Stars burst in his eyes and tangy blood filled his mouth as he was jerked up into the air by his foot. He could hear Sam yelling in pain as the suckers dug deeper into her skin and the parrot-like beak of the octopus snapped close to his head.

A shriek suddenly filled the air. It was impossibly loud; shattering glass windows and blazing through the heads of everybody present. Agony, terror, and rage whipped around them in a miniature tornado that threw bits of grass and rocks into the air. The tentacles that had been so tightly wound around the two teenagers slackened and they both crashed to the ground.

Tucker watched Sam stagger to her feet, carefully holding her bruised and bleeding stomach. Crouched on the ground just a few feet away was the faint and distant form of Danny. He was watching the octopus with a furious gleam in his supernatural eyes and a barely-audible growl in his throat. Suddenly he threw himself off the ground, the wind from his passing tainted with his fury. He slammed into the octopus with a silent roar, tossing it away from them.

Spitting out a mouthful of blood, Tucker watched the octopus race away from the angry teenager. Danny didn't follow; he just watched it flee. Slowly the pain and the fear leaked out of the atmosphere, leaving Tucker with a dead and emotionless feeling in his chest. Heart pounding, he stared at the livid ghost – his best friend – who was practically radiating fury. Danny twisted around when the octopus finally vanished from view, rage billowing off of him and swirling around Sam and Tucker.

"What do you think you were doing?" he asked, a snarl in his echoing voice. Tucker involuntarily backed away from him, his eyes widening and his heart beating loudly in his ears as an unnatural terror filled him. Danny's eyes were a blazing, furious green, full of deadly threats and hollow emotions. Leaves flew off the ground and the grass danced in the supernatural wind that had reappeared. All around them, the world seemed to drain of colors – the sky becoming a dull grey and the ground leaching to a lifeless brown. "That _thing_ could have killed you!"

He stormed up to Sam, glaring at her. Sam, unable to control herself under his psychic onslaught, whimpered and backed away from him as he approached.

Danny froze, pain springing into his eyes.

All around them, rocks and leaves tumbled back to the ground as the rest of the power drained out of the air. The silence was intense – not a bird dared to sing nor a fly dared to buzz. Anger vanished. The sky slipped back to its impossible blue. The grass around Danny's feet, however, stayed an unmoving brown, the fragile grass dead and lifeless. Danny swallowed hard. "I'm scaring you, again, aren't I?"

Slowly, Sam nodded her head. Danny glanced over at Tucker, who nodded as well. "Danny," she said quietly.

He looked down at his feet, clenching his fists.

"Danny, look at me." She reached over and touched his chin to force him to look up. Tucker had expected her hand to go straight through him, but her fingers brushed against his cold, dead skin. "Look at me."

Hollow eyes gazed into hers.

"Thank you," she said firmly. "Thank you for saving my life."

Danny blinked, startled, pulling away from her. Intense, impossibly bright light suddenly flared around him, making the two teenagers close their eyes and turn away. When the light faded, Tucker was left blinking the spots out of his eyes while Danny stared down at his human hands. He was back to normal.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to them, an odd tone in his voice. "I'm not trying to scare you."

Sam caught his blue eyes, a smile flickering across her face for a moment. Tucker watched them as he tried to process everything that had happened in the past few seconds. He slid to his feet, finally understanding what that odd twist to Danny's voice meant: fear.

In the distance, sirens wailed as emergency crews raced towards the park.

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Tucker grabbed the two trays of food from the counter of the Nasty Burger – formerly the 'Tasty Burger' until someone had stolen the 'T' and replaced it with an 'N' a few years ago as a practical joke – and turned to head back towards his friends. A plan was brewing in his head; it had been ever since they had snuck out of the park. The perfect plan.

But he hesitated when his eyes flickered over the hunched form his of best friend. There was no doubt he was a little nervous around Danny. Whenever those dead eyes glanced into his he had to struggle to keep from turning away. This was _Danny…_ but yet at the same time it wasn't. He knew Danny better than anybody else on Earth, except for probably Sam, and there was no doubt in his mind that Danny was just as terrified of what was going on as he was.

There was also the question of what the other boy was keeping from them. Danny had never been good at keeping secrets, but he was obviously refusing to talk about something. Tucker had the vague thought that it had to do with something neither him nor Sam could see, but he couldn't bring himself to push Danny into talking about it. Sam would, at some point, and Tucker was content to wait until she did.

The idea that had germinated about twenty minutes ago churned through Tucker's mind as he headed back toward his friends. He hadn't seen Danny so depressed and quiet since his sister had gotten appendicitis. They needed to get Danny to smile; laughter was a general cure-all for all kinds of wounds. He just wasn't entirely sure his plan was that good of an idea.

Dropping into his normal booth, he pushed one of the trays he had been carrying towards his two companions. It was the normal order: a salad for Sam; a mega order of cheese fries for Danny; and a mighty meaty meal (with extra meat) for him.

Danny let out a little dejected sigh as Sam grabbed her salad and pushed the tray of fries towards him. He propped his chin up on one hand as he reached out with the other to grab a cheese fry. To Tucker's amazement, about half way to Danny's mouth it dropped out of his fingers and onto the floor.

After giving his fingers a sharp shake, Danny picked up another fry. This time he held his fingers over the plate for a moment to see what would happen. After just a second of the hot potato wedge resting in his fingers, the tips of his fingers drained of color and the fry dropped back onto the plate without Danny opening his fingers. "Huh," Danny said. Then he shot a quick glance up at them before returning his eyes to the table.

"You're still looking at us like we're going to disappear on you," Sam mentioned as she attempted to spear a small radish with her plastic fork.

Tucker watched, completely fascinated, as Danny shrugged off the statement and grabbed another cheese fry. For a third time, the fry slipped through his fingers. This time Tucker grabbed Danny's hand and studied it before Danny could give it a shake and return it to normal. The tips of his fingers were colorless and transparent. When Tucker tried to touch Danny's fingers, his fingers passed straight through. "Intangible," Tucker mumbled, "interesting. How'd you do that?"

"I wish it'd stop," Danny grumbled, not looking up. "I'm enough of a freak already, I don't need this." He shot them another one of those quick looks.

Grabbing his triple cheese burger and taking a bite, Tucker sent him a ketchup-stained smile. "You know we're not going to disappear on you… we're your friends, Danny. We're not going anywhere," he swallowed his bite before adding, "unless you get a bit scarier, in which case _I'll_ be in Albuquerque." Stifling a yelp when Sam's heavy boots connected with his leg, he hastily continued. "I'll still be your friend, of course, just from Albuquerque."

"It's okay," Sam smiled. "We know you can't help it and that you're trying. We understand."

Danny let an impossibly small grin flicker across his face for a moment, washing the deadness out of his eyes. "I don't deserve you guys."

"No, you don't," Sam said wickedly. "But you're stuck with us."

"You okay?" Danny asked for the hundredth time since the octopus attack.

Sam rolled her eyes. "We're fine. A little bruised and battered, but we'll get over it." Under the baggy T-shirt she had purchased on the way to the Nasty Burger, her stomach was turning an interesting collage of greens, blues, and purples, interspaced with perfectly round, sucker-shaped marks. The shirt – although not her normal style – kept the questions about what had happened to her to a minimum. Tucker, despite his normally unlucky aura, had fared better and only had a split lip.

Danny didn't look convinced. "It didn't look good, Sam. You sure you don't want to see a doctor? We really should have waited around for the ambulance."

"And have my parents doting on me for the rest of the week? No thanks. It's just a bruise." Sam finally snagged the radish and popped it into her mouth. "But you do have to wonder what happened in the park."

"What do you mean?" Danny asked softly.

Sam speared a small bit of cucumber. "I mean, there's _never_ been a ghost attack in Amity Park. Although we've held the title of the most haunted town in the United States for over two decades, there's never been a confirmed ghost attack. It's all just been strange occurrences and random things. This one, however, is going to be all over the news."

"So?"

"So why now?" Sam asked. "Why did this ghost attack _today _when there's _never_ been an attack before? I think it's got something to do with your accident yesterday."

Tucker nodded slowly as he thought about what she had said. She was really just repeating what he'd said earlier in the park, but it was still true. Amity Park, North America's most haunted destination, had never been able to dredge up any unshakable proof of ghosts. Up until yesterday, Area 61 had more tangible proof of aliens than their town had of anything even vaguely supernatural. All they had was a litany of impossible deaths, mysterious disappearances, and strange happenings. Until today. The fact that the three of them had apparently opened a window into the afterlife probably had something to do with what happened today.

Danny scowled as the cheese fry slipped through his fingers again. "So you're going to blame it on me, then?"

She shook her head. "No – there's no way it's your fault. I'm just saying it's got to be connected somehow. Maybe turning on that ghost-window thing made the octopus more powerful or something."

"Maybe…" Danny sighed. "Maybe they've always been here and now they're just more powerful."

Sam shot him a look. "_They_? There's more than just that octopus thing?"

When Danny paled and began stuttering out what he meant by that, Tucker decided to come to his rescue. It was time to start his plan to attempt to get Danny to really smile at least once that day. "I've been thinking," Tucker interrupted Danny's mumblings after swallowing the latest bite of burger and washing it down with cola, "and I've got something I need to say."

Danny looked up for a second before returning his gaze to the tabletop.

"I've been waiting to say this for a very long time, you know." Tucker grinned. "It fits just perfect."

Danny glanced over at Sam before asking, "What?"

"With great power comes great responsibility," Tucker intoned dramatically, fixing his eyes on Danny.

Silence fell over the table. Finally Danny spluttered, "Do I look like Spiderman?"

"No," he smiled, "but you could have a secret identity thing going. You _could_ be a superhero."

"Those are just comic books, Tucker. There's no such thing."

"Maybe," he shrugged, "but you saved us from that ectopus thing – that makes you a little bit heroic anyway. And it was a good attempt to get you to smile _once_." Tucker raised one eyebrow and laughed at the startled look on Danny's face. "Yeah, smile Danny. Now. Somewhat-heroes with secret identities need a name. I was thinking 'Ghost-Boy' or 'Halfa'. Get it? Half-ghost, half-human… halfa?" Tucker grabbed a napkin from the holder and scribbled the names on it.

"How about 'Inviso-Bill'?" Sam snickered, joining in the inane conversation after glancing at the half-smile on Danny's face.

Tucker shuddered, grabbing a few of his own fries to gesture with. "That's horrible."

"I'm not superhero – I don't need a new name," Danny muttered. When his cheese fry dropped out of his intangible fingertips for the seventh time, a small growl slid out of his throat and thrummed in the low rumbled of the Nasty Burger. He glared at the tray.

Tucker glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes before deciding to ignore his best friend for now. He'd never heard Danny make such a… feral sound before. It made all the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and his instincts scream to run away. He forced himself to stay in his seat, but he couldn't quite stop himself from glancing at Danny every few heartbeats.

"It's better than 'Ghost-Boy'," she snapped back at Tucker, apparently not being able to hear the sound Danny was making. "That sounds like a cheap rip-off of Beast-Boy from those Teen Titans comics. At least mine is _original_."

"You and your _original_," Tucker continued, unconsciously checking on Danny again. The teenager's eyes seemed to be glowing with some sort of greenish fire in his irises. Tucker's feet shifted slightly under his chair as he fought to not get up and run. He focused on Sam and continued the conversation, determinedly ignoring Danny. "How about the 'Amity Spook'?"

"That sounds like a newspaper. How about…"

Tucker shivered as the temperature around their table suddenly dropped a few degrees. Sam trailed off, finally noticing that something was going on. Glaring down at the cheese fries, Danny seemed to be glowering at the food, completely paying no attention to the two of them. "Dan…" Tucker started, but cut off as energy swirled into existence around their table.

Danny's arms were trembling as they grasped the edge of the table. Emerald flickers of light fizzled around his hands. Gasping and jumping to his feet, Tucker stumbled back away from the table. Every hair on the top of his head was standing up like he'd just been shocked and his breath was pluming in the air. With an almost audible crackle of energy, the paranormal glow around Danny's hands jumped to the mound of fries, burning them into twisted twigs.

Tucker glanced up at Sam, who was standing a few feet away from the table and was extremely pale. "Danny…" he said quietly.

"What?" Danny snapped. He looked up and met Tucker's eyes.

Dead, haunted, and impossibly hollow. Tucker took a step backwards before he could stop himself. His intestines seemed like they were twisting up in knots as this _creature_ stared at them. He had to swallow heavily before he could continue, working hard to convince himself that Danny wasn't going to hurt him. "Danny, calm down."

"_Calm?_" he hissed. Tiny, emerald fires seemed to light up in his eyes. "_Calm?_ I can't even pick up _fries_, Tucker."

"We'll figure it out," Tucker reasoned. "Your parents can help. They know a lot about ghosts."

Danny's eyes narrowed and pain seemed to ignite in them. "There's no such thing as ghosts." The mutilated tower of burned fries sizzled and collapsed.

"Why are you so dead-set on believe ghosts don't exist?" Sam asked softly. She gave herself a small shake and walked back up to the table, resting her hands on the back of her empty seat. Tucker felt himself relax slightly when Danny's eyes turned away from his.

"Because they don't, that's why." Danny grabbed his tray and stood up, heading for the trash bin.

Sam shook her head. "Because ghosts are dead," she corrected.

Danny stiffened, but didn't turn around to look back at them.

"Because if _you're_ a ghost that means that _you_ are dead," she finished mercilessly.

Storming over to the garbage can, he dumped in the remains of the snack and didn't answer. When the tray suddenly clattered to the ground, Tucker noticed that Danny's whole body seemed to be shaking with repressed emotions. His best friend's hands clenched tightly as he glared down at the floor. Tucker wanted to do something, but his feet refused to move. They had been cemented solidly to the floor.

"Danny," Sam said, following him over and touching his shoulder. "It's okay…"

Danny twisted around, his empty sapphire eyes fixing on her. The doors to the Nasty Burger banged open and an impossibly cold breeze flooded through the restaurant. Frozen whispers of frustration and confused rage slithered around the trio of friends as Danny just stood there, staring into Sam's eyes. His normally expressive eyes were completely devoid of the emotions that were flaring and churning inside of him.

Tucker licked his lips and struggled to keep from looking away. There was something incredibly dangerous about Danny right now. He seemed to be exuding an aura of power; a predator amongst his helpless prey. Every pore of Tucker's body was shrieking that he needed to move.

The various patrons of the Nasty Burger had fallen silent and were looking around the place as they began to sense the foreboding presence of this spectral human. They slid closer together, eyes wide. Overhead, several of the fluorescent lights fizzed and flickered out.

"It's okay," Sam whispered.

"It's not okay," Danny said with a choked voice in the intense silence. "Don't you get it? It's _not okay._" For a brief moment, terror and pain sparkled in his eyes, then he simply vanished.

Sam and Tucker glanced at each other in dismay as the fear and anger evaporated and the temperature of the Nasty Burger drifted back to normal. People went back to their conversations and meals, quickly forgetting about the odd feeling that had swept through them.

Only one other person seemed to be quietly taking note of what had happened. Drumming carefully manicured nails against the dirty table, a well-dressed business man finished off his bottle of water and headed out the door to his car.

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Danny slumped into the seat at the movie theater, staring blankly at the screen. It was one of those old black and white movies the theater played now and then – the ones where it cost a whole fifty cents for a ticket. He had snuck in through the side wall about half-way through the showing, so he didn't feel too bad. He figured the theater was only out a quarter and he wasn't watching it anyways.

It was the darkness and the solitude that he had been seeking when he had decided to come here. On a school night, the last showing of the old movie matinee was the only place guaranteed to be free from his peers. He wasn't dead, he couldn't be _dead_…

Tears prickled at his eyes. No, there was no way he was a ghost. There was no way he was dead. He felt the inside of his wrist, feeling the warm and steady vibration of his pulse. Ghosts didn't have heartbeats, they weren't warm.

And there was no way a _ghost_ would feel this absolutely horrible. Damn Sam and Tucker for making him feel this way. Screw them for bringing this up. He didn't want to think about it, not now and not ever. He just wanted things to be _normal._

For a quiet eternity, he listened to the sounds of the movie, trying not to think, but his rebellious brain refused to shut up. It wanted an explanation for everything that had happened these past twenty-four hours, and it kept settling on _that_ one. The only one Danny didn't want to be true.

His appearance, sometimes anyways… the things he could do… what he was _feeling_… He bit his lip and folded his arms tighter to his chest. It was scary beyond belief, and he didn't dare tell anyone about it. Sam and Tucker were his only friends and they would abandon him if he told them _half_ of what was going on in his mind. He couldn't tell them of the smells and the sounds, the cackles and the whispers, the glimpses of movement or the things in the shadows. He could never tell them how _hard_ it was, sometimes, seeing waves of _something_ flooding off of them like those ripples of heat over the tar on hot days. He would never tell them how drawn he was to those strange ripples that smelled of butterscotch, strawberry pie, and warm summer nights. Oh, how he wanted to feel them…

A tear slid down his cheek and he wiped it away angrily. A small shadow appeared on the screen, moving vaguely back and forth for a few moments. Although it was definitely not part of the movie, none of the other audience members gave any sign that they could see it. Danny stared at it for a moment, a cold chill slipping down his spine. "Go away," he whispered at it, his breath misting faintly in the air. The shadow paused in its restless movements and seemed to study him.

It made a soft noise, a combination of a snake's hiss and a tiger's snarl. Leaving the small gaggle of elderly women watching the show, it stalked down the aisle, its dark and indistinct form fading in and out of view. It stopped a few feet from him, twin red eyes sparkling darkly in its shadowed face, studying him.

"Go away," he whispered again, but the shadow didn't move.

"Make me," it hissed, its voice almost unintelligible above the animal-like growls and an impossibly haunting echo. The words collided around in his head, repeating themselves over and over.

"Please," Danny whispered, his own voice taking on the rough echoing sound no human could ever be able to make. He couldn't take his eyes off if it. He wanted it gone, he wanted it to go away. Cold fingers of dread were digging themselves into his heart as the creature stood there, staring at him. "Just go away." The thing – the ghost, he admitted to himself – was fizzing against his nerves, making his fingers jump and his leg twitch.

"What be thee?" The thing drifted closer, no longer touching the ground, ragged edges of its shadowy form brushing against Danny as it hovered just before him. It sniffed loudly, frozen, rancid air rolling off of it. It took a loud, rattling breath. "Be thee dead, child?"

Danny pressed back against the thin cushion of the theater's chair, fighting to keep from making noise. "Go away," he whispered again. He couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Nay," it hiss-snarled, an evil chuckle now in its voice. "Be thee _scared_?" That last word sliced into him like a dagger, his body shuddering at the freezing feeling. "Pray, child, answer me," the red eyes fixed into him and forced a small whimper out of his throat, "_what be thee?_"

A new feeling swirled in the deepest center of his body. It curled and stretched, growling at the ghost's power, snarling coldly in rage. Danny felt his eyes narrow, the vague burning sensation sweep through them. The shadowy ghost suddenly jumped into sharp focus – it was little more than a hollow skull with red lights and a gruesome sneer. With a startled, echoing cry that couldn't be heard by mortal ears, Danny threw his hand out towards the ghost. The feeling from deep inside clawed into way up his chest, digging painfully as it cascaded into his outstretched arm and down to his fingers.

It leapt from his hand towards the ghost in a shower of green light. The ghost screamed in agony as the light slammed against it. Boney hands came up to shield its face as the scream turned into a deadly shriek. The creature, the ghost, the _demon_, whatever it was, fled through the wall, its poisonous wail echoing through the building.

Danny, shivering violently and staring at the hand that was still held up in the air, gave a low moan and sank back into his chair, eyes wild as they darted around the room. Nothing moved throughout the room. The other audience members didn't seem to have noticed the drama unfolding behind them.

For the next half-hour, he just sat there, unable to move, curled up around himself and trying to control his shaking. It wasn't until he watched the movie begin to wind down that he was able to put together a coherent sentence.

"That was a ghost," he murmured to himself. "_That was a ghost._"

On the screen, the woman – Christine – was sobbing over the death of one of the characters. "That was a ghost," he mumbled, "and… so am… I…"

The camera panned in on the dead man; a man that had struggled for so long to fight the confines of 'good' or 'evil'; a man whose true being lay hidden behind a mask and a terrible accident.

"I am a ghost," Danny said with a little more conviction, but not quite able to hide the tremor in his voice. "But not really." He held up his hand and studied the human skin, feeling his heart beat in his chest, reveling in the stale air that whispered in his lungs. "I'm human too." He let his hand drop into his lap as the credits began to roll.

"_What be thee?_" he rasped in a poor imitation of the shadowy creature. In the front of the theater, the patrons rose and made their way to the aisles and out the doors in the back. "I don't know," he mussed to himself.

Falling in step with an older lady that was leaning heavily on her cane, Danny bit his tongue for a moment, thinking. "There was a ghost in there," he informed her as he held open the door so she could pass. He wasn't sure why he said it, but it was too late to take back now.

The lady smiled at him. "Dear, that wasn't a ghost."

Danny blinked. "It wasn't?" He was startled. Had she seen the shadowy thing as well?

She moved off down the hallway and Danny had to step quickly to catch up to her. She chuckled. "It wasn't called the 'Ghost of the Opera', my dear. That was a _Phantom_."

Danny smiled at her, nodding as he caught on. She hadn't seen anything but the movie.

He fell behind the other audience members, his eyes trained on the ground. The last thing he wanted to see was those dead, little creatures hovering around people as they walked. It was inanely creepy to know how many ghosts existed around them at every moment, yet nobody seemed to be able to see them but him.

As a yawn slipped out of him and he started for home, a thought flittered through his mind. "At least they aren't that dangerous."

--In _real life_, things aren't always as they seem.

(end chapter 3)


	5. Being a Friend Isn't Always Easy

_*edited 12/2008*_

**Real Life  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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(chapter 4)

In Which Being a Friend Isn't Always Easy

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Danny wandered through town, his eyes fixed firmly on the sidewalk. He'd never seen so many ants than he had today – tiny red ones, quick brown ones, huge black ones – Amity Park really had an ant problem. There was, of course, a reason why the ants were so interesting today.

Actually, there were three really good reasons to keep his eyes one the ground. Danny shivered to himself as he tried to figure out where he was based solely on the cracks in the sidewalk, not daring to look up. But, in the end, he found himself completely lost and he had to look.

His eyes flickered to the coffee shop just ahead of him. The blurry forms of the humans that sat at small tables sipped drinks in the warm evening. Tiny ripples of emotions flooded out from each one, gathering together and forming small waves that were tinged with delicious smells. Those strange wrinkles in the air weren't really smells, they were more feelings, but they tingled the back of his nose. The small crowd at the coffee shop collectively felt like warm cookies, hot chocolate, and a thick blanket on a cold winter's night.

Around the humans, flickering in the shadows and coiling under tables, were nearly a dozen other things that weren't quite so human. They collected in areas where the almost-unseen ripples were the strongest. Snapping and hissing at each other, they created an unnatural cacophony that drifted just underneath the warm babble of the humans. The creatures gave off the tiny undulations of energy as well, but they were cold and unfeeling, laced with instinctive fury and protectiveness. One of the long shadow-things slithered out from under a table, passing right through a young woman's leg. She reached down absently as if she were going to swat a mosquito, confused when there was nothing she could see.

Danny wrenched his eyes away from the scene, burrowing his shaking hands into the pockets of his jeans. All throughout the day he had seen these _things_: bat-like creatures that had flitted around in the cafeteria; rat-things that had run through lockers; and more than once he had seen the large fox in the hallway. Nobody else seemed to know that they existed.

Up until today, he hadn't noticed them either.

Forcing himself not to glance up again as he strode past the coffee shop, he shook his head, mentally tallying the reasons he shouldn't have looked up. The first was those odd ripples of life that so fascinatingly swirled and eddied. A second, easily, was the creepy shadow-things that nobody else could see. The last – the worst – was the look in people's eyes when they met his gaze… a shiver, a glance away, a slight retreating… a tiny bit of fear.

One foot in front of the other, Danny worked his way down the street. People walked around him, unconsciously drifting farther away from him than they usually would. Crowds of people surged, but Danny was alone in the midst of it all. Normally his slight frame would've been jostled and shoved, but today nobody seemed to want to get near him. It was like he had some sort of poisonous cloud around him.

Finally recognizing the corner that led to his house by the strange cracks on the ground (Tucker swore that it looked like a map of Amity Park but neither Danny or Sam had ever been able to see it), he turned to his right and headed up the street towards home/

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Sam drummed her chipped fingernails against the table of the Nasty Burger. Danny had vanished nearly an hour earlier and the manager had long since replaced the lights that had broken during Danny's tantrum. She and Tucker were still there as the sun began to set, waiting to see if Danny was going to come back and apologize. Well, Sam was waiting for Danny to come back. Tucker was there because Sam had blackmailed and bribed him into staying.

"So what if he's a ghost," she muttered darkly for the seventh time since Danny had disappeared, "that doesn't give him an excuse to be that _rude_."

"He's scared," Tucker said as he grabbed a fry from his third order of cheese fries. "It's kind of hard to blame him for running away. I'd be scared too."

"I don't care." Her eyes blazed. "Danny's our friend and he should be nicer to us. We don't care that he's a ghost."

"Are you…" Tucker trailed off, his eyes fixed firmly on the table, unable to look up into his friend's eyes. He cleared his throat. "Are you a little… afraid of him?"

"He's our friend Tucker!" She couldn't believe that he'd say that. But even as she said it, a weird feeling surged up inside of her. Even though he was her friend, there was no doubt about the fear that had been swirling through her all day.

"I know he is," he said quietly, "but he's not entirely human. Some of the things he can do…" Tucker looked up into her eyes and shrugged. "There were times when I had to really fight not to run in the other direction. Especially when he's a ghost, you know? And sometimes when he's human. Sometimes there's no life in his eyes."

Sam sighed and propped her chin up with her hands. "I'm not afraid of _him_," she said after thinking it through, "but yeah, I'm frightened of what he can do… and what he is. But he wouldn't hurt us, not on purpose. It doesn't really make sense…"

Tucker nodded. "Yeah..." He popped the last of the cheese fries into his mouth and licked his fingers before glancing at his watch. "Drat. I missed supper."

"You've been eating non-stop for over an hour!" Sam said incredulously. "How can you still be hungry?"

"Fear does that to a person."

Sam pressed her eyes into the heels of her hands and groaned. "What are we going to do tomorrow, Tucker? I'm not sure I can take being around him like this for another day. It's too nerve-wracking being on my toes all day and checking over my shoulder to see where he is. But we can't _ignore _him. He's our friend."

Tucker was silent for a long time. "I think he understands," he said very quietly. "I think one of the things he's afraid of is us running away in fear. He _knows_ we're scared of him." He pushed a small pile of fry crumbs around his tray for a moment. "But I don't think he can really help it. Maybe that's just what he is now."

"How does that help?"

He played with his salt for a few seconds. When he spoke, Sam could barely hear him. "I think that if we don't go over and talk to him, he won't come over and talk to us. I think he'd understand. That would solve the problem."

"What?" Sam's voice was even softer than Tucker's. She couldn't imagine the words coming out of her friend's mouth. "You mean stop being friends with him? Ignore him because he's different? Run away because it's not as easy being friends with him any more? Not help him fix this?"

"Sam." He looked up at her. "I don't think this is something that is _fixable_. I've been thinking all afternoon about this, and I'm pretty sure I know how Danny got to be like this." He shook his head sadly. "I think the part of him that's a ghost is what's keeping him alive."

"So you'd just leave him?" Sam fought back the tears that were threatening to appear in her eyes.

"He's _scary_. Did you see what he did to those french fries? He did that because he was _frustrated_." He leaned across the table, looking the furious girl straight in the eyes. "Sam, what's going to happen when he gets frustrated with us? What happens if he sinks even farther into this ghost persona? Remember the park? He was inches from attacking _us._ I was willing to ignore that… but then he did it again here. He looked me in the eyes and there was _murder_ in his eyes, Sam."

"He won't…"

"You don't know that," he cut her off. "He's obviously got no control over what he's doing. He could kill us and not even mean it. The _safest_ thing…"

"NO!" she screamed. Silence fell in the Nasty Burger as she pushed her chair back and stood up. She wasn't going to sit here and listen to this. This was _Danny_ they were talking about; the one person that she trusted completely. Not even Tucker could talk about him like this. "I don't _care_ what the safest thing to do is. Being friends isn't always about doing the _safe_ thing. It's about doing the _right_ thing."

"Sam…"

"Shut up!" She slammed her hand down on the table. "You, Tucker Foley, are… are…" she was so furious that she couldn't come up with an appropriately low and slimy metaphor. She just gave a strangled scream, turned, and stormed out the door.

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Danny slumped into the old sofa in the living room, closing his eyes tightly to try and force out the images of everything he'd seen that day. "What a day," he whispered.

"Did you say something, sweetie?" his mother asked as she walked into the room. She had her lab goggles pushed up on her forehead and a basket of laundry balanced on her hip.

"No," he moaned sourly as a chill breeze seemed to blow down his neck. "I think I've just got a headache."

"What some aspirin?"

Danny shook his head and opened his eyes. He glanced over at his mother, but his eyes were drawn to a small puppy sitting in the basket of laundry. The mastiff had a thick, spiky collar, red-brown eyes, and appeared to be partially rotted. "AH!" Danny yelped, jumping out of his feet with his eyes fixed on the ghost dog.

"What?" his mother asked as she checked behind her.

Danny's eyes flickered from the dog snuggling into the shirts to his mother's confused face. "Um…" he stuttered. Just for a second he contemplated telling Maddie Fenton _exactly_ what was wrong. _Mom, there's a ghost dog sitting in your laundry and only I can see him because for some reason I'm a ghost part of the time myself._ But he choked it back with a small sigh. Nobody would believe that.

"Oh, I know," his mother chuckled softly, "that was my reaction when I saw it too." She nodded down at the basket.

Blinking in confusion, Danny waited for her to continue.

"After getting that mess in the lab cleaned up, your father tried to integrate that new spectral engine into the dryer." She set the basket down, reached through the ghost dog like it wasn't really there, and pulled out a mangled and torn shirt. "On the positive side, it appears that we've invented an engine that uses the ambient emotional energy in the air – there was a fifteen percent decrease in the nominal power draw. On the slightly more negative side, we can't control it. That extra energy comes and goes without warning and it blew out the motor somewhere during the 'cool down' cycle. Look at all this mending I'll have to con Jazz into doing for me." She dropped the shirt back into the basket with a small grin.

"Oh," he managed to get out. The dog burrowed out from under the ragged clothes and vanished into the kitchen. For a few seconds he watched the door, waiting for the puppy to reappear, but then dragged his eyes back to his mother. She was looking at him with concern.

"Are you sure you're okay? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Yeah," he said softly. He shot her a pale smile. "I'm fine."

She nodded slowly. "Well, take some aspirin and get to sleep early tonight. If you need me I'll be bribing your sister into fixing all these shirts." She winked at him, her smile growing. "Try to stay away from your father tomorrow – that Ghost Portal we've been working on mysteriously started working last night and he's been dying to find someone to ramble his theories to." Picking up the basket and sending him one last smile, she headed up the stairs.

Danny sunk back into the sofa with a groan. Nothing really seemed to be able to express the horrible twisting sensation in his stomach. He could feel the terror, nervousness, and panic simmering just under the extreme exhaustion that was settling into his mind. But strangely there was something else there as well. Hidden beneath the fear was a tiny bit of excitement.

What was going to happen tomorrow?

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Tucker pushed the power button on his computer and waited for the comforting whir of the hard drive. He glowered at the screen as it buzzed into life, thinking back over the horrible mess at the Nasty Burger.

Sam had just left him like that, sitting in the totally silent restaurant, everybody staring at him. He'd deserved it on some level; Danny Fenton was his best friend and he really shouldn't have said what he'd said. Up until today, he'd been sure that he'd do anything for Danny. He would have said that he'd jump off a cliff for him. But now?

Tucker shivered, playing with the mouse. That was before he'd seen Danny glare at him, power whirling around his friend, a cold hand clawing at Tucker's heart. He could ignore what happened in the park since that ectopus thing had been there, but how could just ignore the Nasty Burger? It had all been kind of fun and mysterious until he'd seen the uncontrolled frustrated rage in his friend's eyes. Now, though, deep down inside of him, he _knew_ that hanging around with Danny was an _extremely_ dangerous idea. Danny barely had any control over these powers he'd been cursed with. One argument might be all it took for the teen to accidentally kill them.

It all came down to one all-encompassing question. Which was more important to him: Danny's friendship or not risking his life?

Logging onto the internet, Tucker sighed and stared blankly at the Google homepage, not having decided where he wanted to go.

There was no question that Danny would understand if Tucker pulled away. He bit his lip. Danny'd be hurt, but he wouldn't push it. Tucker let go of the mouse and buried his head in his arms, his brain starting to hurt.

"Tucker?" his mother called. She knocked on his door before letting herself in. "I heard you come in. Are you hungry?"

Tucker, head still buried, shook his head.

Janet walked over and rubbed his shoulder. "What's wrong, sweet heart?"

Tucker groaned into his arms. His mother was always a little too perceptive. Although he had to admit that it didn't take a genius to know something was wrong when he skipped supper and was sitting like this. She was usually pretty helpful though. "If you had a friend," he said, not lifting his head out of his arms, "that caught some kind of horrible disease that made it really hard to be around them… what would you do?"

His mother's hand stopped its comforting circles. "Is this 'horrible disease' a curable one?"

Shaking his head, Tucker glanced back at his mother. Concern sparkled in her eyes when she saw the pain in his eyes. "What if it was… dangerous? How good of a friend would they have to be for you try and stay around them?"

Janet settled down on his bed, folding her hands in her lap. "That depends," she said, "on what kind of friend _you_ are, not what kind of friend _they_ are." She leaned closer. "Tucker… where are these questions coming from?"

He winced and struggled to find something he could say. "I… he… they… they don't want everybody to know yet. I'm not even sure _I _should know."

"This 'friend' is a good enough friend that you're lying to your mother about it. That's saying something already," she said simply. "You're going to have to make your own decisions. But if you get thrown in jail, I will kill you. If you die, I will call your great-grandmother to make sure you are tormented forever in the afterlife. And if this has to do with drugs, drinking, or sex, I will personally make your life a living Hell."

"Thanks," Tucker whispered sourly.

She smiled. "Tucker, I will say this. A good friend is there for his friends when they fall down." She touched his chin and looked into his hazel eyes. "He's not there to fall down _with_ his friends… he's there to help pick them back up. Understand?"

"Kind of."

"Good." She stood up and brushed some imaginary flour off of her skirt before heading for the door. "Now. Are you hungry?"

Tucker shook his head. "No, I ate with Sam at the Nasty Burger."

She paused and glanced back at him. "Where was Danny?"

Caught completely flat-footed, Tucker fought for something to say as his face paled. For one of the first times in his life, nothing jumped into his mind for him to say. His normally talkative brain was dead silent.

"Ah," Janet said quietly and closed the door behind her.

Tucker let his head drop backwards and he half-screamed. He sat there for the longest time, staring up at the small cracks in the ceiling, contemplating Danny, his mother, and the whole messy situation. Finally, with his neck protesting every movement, he turned back to the computer. Shaking his mouse to clear the screensaver, he found himself staring at the internet.

But this time he had a small smile on his face.

Very carefully, he typed in one word: 'Ghosts'.

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Danny yawned and stretched under his warm blankets, glancing blearily at the alarm clock sitting next to his bed. It was going to go off in a few minutes. He curled up, fully intent on keeping his half-asleep state as long as possible. All his problems from yesterday were out of his mind. For these precious few moments, he felt like a normal teenager.

In the sleepy quiet of the early morning, he didn't notice when the world blurred and faded around him, the soft sounds of his mother in the kitchen vanishing. His mind fell into a dream-like trance. Nothing around him seemed quite real. He took a few deep breaths and let himself sink farther into his dream.

Things in his room misted into unreality in his mind. The ceiling, walls, and floor vanished from his mind and left him feeling like he was floating in a world of nothingness. And then he let the comfortable bed beneath him fade away…

He fell. His eyes flickered open just in time to see the underside of his bed before he phased through the floor and down into the living room. A startled yelp worked its way out of him just as the thought of how hard the living room floor was going to be flooded through his head. With that one thought, the world around him took on a very _real_ – if blurry and indistinct – solidness again.

Danny crashed into the couch, bouncing once before tumbling to the floor. He moaned, pushing himself onto his hands and knees and shaking his head to clear it. The smell of apples on a crisp autumn morning swirled into his nose and he glanced up. A giant bluish smudge was kneeling down in front of him, its apple smell tinged with the sounds of tiny claws skittering on a hard floor. The blur made a sound and Danny tried desperately to focus on it to try to figure out what it was saying… or at least who it _was._ This early in the morning, it could've been anybody.

Then, suddenly and without warning, everything was back to normal. "Danny!" his mother said again. Her eyes were wide with worry as she reached out and brushed his hair out of his eyes. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

Danny blinked a few times. "I fell," he said. "I'm okay." He pushed himself unsteadily to his feet and smiled at her, wondering if his smile reached his eyes. Still crouched on the floor, the skeptical look she was wearing seemed to indicate that it hadn't.

"You sure?" she asked quietly. "You didn't look very good last night either."

He nodded. "I was just hungry…" he hesitated as he tried to form the lie in his head, "so I got up a little early to get something to eat and… tripped?" Forcing himself groan when his sentence came out as a question (and an obvious lie), he waited for his mother's answer.

"Oh. Well, we're out of cereal," she said after a moment, still studying him, "so you'll have to have oatmeal this morning. I left out some of the instant stuff next to the microwave for you and Jazz." She pushed herself to her feet. "You know you can talk to me if you ever need to, right?"

"Yeah." Danny sent her a grin that was a bit more real than his last one.

She laughed softly and ruffled his hair before turning and heading upstairs to get ready for the day.

Danny watched her leave, glancing up at the ceiling he had just fallen through, and headed into the kitchen. He really was hungry. Grabbing a bowl and the small packet of oatmeal, he let his mind wander back to what had just happened. "I fell through the ceiling," he whispered in quiet disbelief. "I wasn't a ghost this morning, I was human… so why did I fall like that?"

After dumping the oatmeal into the bowl he walked over to the sink, quickly filled the bowl, and mixed the cold glop distractedly with his finger. "Was it because of how I was feeling? That un-real-ness?" He made a face as he dropped the bowl into the microwave and punched two minutes into the timer. "Is un-real-ness even a word?"

He leaned against the counter before he stared the microwave, gazing out into the cloudy morning air. The world blurred quietly into what he was growing to term 'ghost' mode, and he watched the ghost dog from last night trot across the back lawn. It was easy to see the bullet hole in the dog's head against the greenish smear that was the outside. "I fell through a ceiling and I've got the dead specter of a puppy haunting the laundry. Huh." Shaking his head at the absurdity of it all, he squinted down at the black smudge that was the microwave and felt for the 'start' button. He pressed it.

"AH!" He barely stifled the scream as he backpedaled away from the thing and pressed his back against the far wall, his hands pressed against his ears. The device had shrieked into existence, smashing waves of energy against his senses. The front of his body felt like someone was jabbing small pins into his skin. It screamed into his ears and echoed into his mind, dashing all of his thoughts into shards. Distantly, he thought he could hear the painful howl of the puppy.

For the very first time, he railed against the blurry world that surrounded him. There was no way he was going to stay like this. He needed his mind to be completely human and he needed it _now. _He couldn't wait for it to fade away like yesterday. He _twisted_ his mind and everything slammed into clear existence. The agonized howl cut off and the demonic shrieking of the microwave vanished. The startling agony of the waves of energy disappeared, leaving his skin prickling and aching. Danny panted softly, staring in horror at the device across the kitchen.

"Danny?" his mother called, sticking her head around the doorframe and glancing over at him. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he said shakily. The microwaves beeped quietly, signaling the fact that the oatmeal was done. "I just thought I… heard something. But it's gone."

She walked the rest of the way into the kitchen and crouched in front of him, pressing the inside of her wrist to his forehead. "You're skin's so cold," she murmured in concern.

Pushing her hand away, Danny pushed himself to his feet. "I'm fine, I just thought I heard something." When his mother's expression showed that she was willing to argue, Danny forced a small smile on his face and rolled his eyes. "Can I eat my breakfast before it gets cold or are you going to drag me to the hospital for a physical?

She let a small smile flicker across her face. "Fine, fine, but if you're not feeling well, I want you to stay home from school today."

Danny sighed and sank into a chair when his mother was gone, steadfastly ignoring the quiet beeping of the demonic microwave telling him is food was warm. The idea of staying home from school today was _extremely _tempting. He could hang around his room, pretending to be sick, trying to get a hold on these… ghost powers. Maybe he could figure out why he fell through the ceiling.

Then he groaned sourly. He still needed to apologize to Sam and Tucker for how he acted yesterday at the Nasty Burger. He needed to tell them that they were right and that he was sorry. One of the reasons why he'd been so adamant about the fact that ghosts weren't real was the worry that he was dead, just like Sam had been trying to tell him. And then there was the thing with the fries. He wasn't at _all_ sure of how he was going to explain why he'd been so angry at the fries. It was just that after everything else that had happened that day, not being able to pick up a simple _french fry _had been impossibly frustrating. It had just bubbled over. The nearly identical expressions of fear on their faces afterwards had only made things seem worse. He had run because he needed to get away and clear his head.

All told, it wasn't something you could just apologize for over the phone or in a text message. He'd probably have to actually track them down at school – no doubt they would be avoiding him. _He_ would have avoided himself if possible. Why would you want a friend that scared you so much?

Staring morosely in the direction of the microwave (which was beeping quietly and still holding his oatmeal hostage), he muttered, "To school. Fantastic."

He stood up and walked over to the microwave, pausing a few feet away and studying the thing. The mind-shattering noise echoed through his head and his skin prickled with remembered pain for a moment. He slowly reached out a finger and shakily moved closer to the button that made the door open. Just before it touched the machine he yanked his hand back.

"This is stupid, Fenton," he hissed. "You can't be afraid of a microwave. Open it already."

His hand snapped out and pressed the button, but he couldn't quite stop the flinch when the door popped open. He snatched the steaming bowl of oatmeal and slammed the door shut, retreating into the living room to eat his oatmeal. "The couch is just so much more comfortable," he grumbled quietly, just in case anybody was watching. Daniel Fenton was _not_ afraid of a stupid microwave.

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It might have only been his second day of school, but Danny decided he now hated coming to school. The invisible creatures that scampered around feeding off the human population seemed to congregate where there were lots of people. Hundreds of them flocked to the town's center for drama and angst: Casper High School.

To make it all the worse, he hadn't been able to track down Sam or Tucker that morning to apologize. Not that he had looked very hard… he'd spent most of the early morning sitting on a bench way out of the way, watching out of the corner of his eyes as dozens of spectral creatures flocked to the school on the heels of his peers. Thankfully they seemed to steer clear of him, but they were still creepy and it had taken nearly fifteen minutes of persuasion to get himself off the bench and closer to the school.

Sam was normally in his first hour class, but she had some big volunteer thing she had been doing and was probably off doing that. Tucker, who also should have been there, was mysteriously absent. Danny spent the entire hour with his eyes carefully trained on his paper, trying really hard not to think that his friends were avoiding him. Somewhere between the eleventh and twelfth flinch away from _something_ flitting on the edge of his vision, he began to seriously contemplate whether or not he could handle being around his parents all day and being home schooled.

As it was, Danny slunk into his next class without much hope left for the day. He sank into his desk for math – his worst subject on a good day – and tried his hardest not to stare at the three bats flapping around the room.

"Mr. Fenton," the math teacher called and Danny quietly raised his hand, showing that he was there. As Mr. Falluca took the rest of attendance, Danny focused his attention down on his paper. But he still couldn't help the nervous tic at a flicker of iridescent light.

"You okay, Fentonia?" a voice whispered from his right.

Danny looked up into the face of Dash Baxter, resident football star and sports idol. He couldn't really figure out what to say to that. Dash usually went out of his way to torment and torture the 'losers', and now he was asking if Danny was alright? For that reason, Danny figured it was some kind of trick – one he wasn't going to fall for. He settled for giving Dash a confused look.

"Jeez, Fenton, I was just wondering if that twitchy-thing of yours was contagious." Dash rolled his eyes and turned back to his own notes.

Danny curled his fingers in a fist under the desk. Even _Dash_ was noticing that something was wrong. Great.

For a second, the world felt like it was going to blur into 'ghost' mode, but Danny fought it off with a quiet snarl. He was going to be _normal_ all day at school today, even if it killed him. An image of his friend's terrified faces filtered through his mind. He never wanted to see that expression on them ever again. That is, if they were still his friends. He _needed_ to get control of this… whatever it was.

As the teacher droned away in the front of the class, Danny moaned and dropped his chin onto his arms. The whole question was how?

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Not too far away, the well-dressed man from the Nasty Burger leaned against the wall of his hotel room, opened his cell phone, and called up a small picture he'd taken of the three friends yesterday afternoon. He gazed down at the snapshot like the pixels would reveal the identity of the black-haired teenager. "What a display," he mussed quietly, "so much potential." After yesterday, there was no doubt that the boy was infused with a large amount of spectral energy. The question was how much.

"Is he powerful enough to obtain a supernatural form, or is he just an overly powerful medium?" Either way, the boy would become an incredible asset to his plans with some practice, proper guidance, and, of course, a _lot_ more control than the young man had displayed in the restaurant. Before he could approach the youth, however, he would need more information. He needed to learn just what and who this boy was.

Scarlet flames flickered around the edges of his blue-grey irises. "Calev, Yosef, Tal. Come here." He accompanied his echoing words with a wave of blood-red energy that flooded out in every direction.

He wrinkled his nose as the room quickly filled with the smell of dusty feathers. Two ancient and transparent vultures appeared out of nothing, the third a heartbeat behind them. The three brothers supposedly had been slain for 'accidentally' flying a little too close to the crucified form of Jesus of Nazareth, making them just over two thousand years old. The details of their life's story shifted as often as the wind, but the creatures were usually reliable and helpful.

The closest of the birds spread his wings, huge gaps where feathers had been torn from him. The head of an arrow showed just above his right shoulder, the bloody fletching still sticking out of his left breast. The bird opened his beak and let an ear-splitting caw fill the air. His blood-red eyes fixed on the human, energy sparkling on his broken wings.

The man's blue-grey eyes instantly flared red. "You dare," he hissed, the room suddenly filling with energy. Power snapped and crackled around the two of them as they stared at each other. After just a few moments, the bird closed his wings and settled back down. "Stupid ghosts," the man snarled. They were constantly fighting him for dominance.

"You see this boy here?" He held out the screen to the spectral creatures and tapped on the small screen with a little more force than necessary. His eyes were still a sparkling, angry red.

The eldest vulture, Yosef, nodded what remained of its bald head.

"I want you to find him and follow him, but don't let him know you're there. I want you to study him." The man glared at the three ghostly birds for a long moment, power coursing through him and around the birds to reinforce his command. "I need to know how powerful he is."

Calev – the smallest vulture – bowed his head and shrugged his wings in submission, scarlet eyes glittering. Yosef merely nodded again. It was the tallest of the three, Tal, that kept his eyes locked on the man. After a long, tense moment, he nodded as well. "Rikhtik," he squawked. The three of them vanished.

The man didn't watch them leave. His attention was focused down on the picture of the boy. "Who are you?" he whispered.

--In _real life_, being a friend isn't always easy.

(end chapter 4)

_English - (Phonetic) Yiddish Dictionary  
__--Rikhtik okay_


	6. The World Doesn't Always Make Sense

_*edited 12/2008*_

**Real Life  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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(chapter 5)

In Which the World Doesn't Always Make Sense

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Tucker carefully balanced his lunch tray on top of the small stack of books he had borrowed from the library. He scanned the cafeteria, spotting his friend sitting at their usual table. Danny was staring down at his food and not looking around.

He walked over and dropped the books loudly, snagging the tray artfully before it could drop. "Where's Sam?" he asked.

Danny glanced up at him, his eyes sparkling when he saw Tucker slip into the seat across from him. "I haven't seen her all day. I thought…"

"Listen, Danny," Tucker interrupted, setting his tray down and staring right into his friend's eyes. "I'm your friend, and as your friend I'm going to be totally frank with you."

Nodding, Danny looked a little confused.

"I'm scared of you." He picked up his plastic spork and waggled it in his friend's direction. "Now, I know you wouldn't hurt me on _purpose_, but I'm terrified of the idea that you could randomly get mad at something and I'd end up in the same condition as those cheese fries last night. I spent a large portion of yesterday trying to decide if it was a good idea for me to be anywhere near you."

Danny sighed, his mouth opening to say something, but Tucker fiercely shook his head. "Let me finish. I've gone over this monologue in my head too many times for you to interrupt it and ruin this for me." He stopped and took a breath. "At first, I thought this whole ghost thing was kind of cool. I mean, you could walk through walls and stuff – you can do things most of us can only read about in comics. You were scary as a ghost, yeah, but it was something I could live with because the powers were so cool. But then you toasted those fries, and I got frightened. For the first time I started to think about this as something that was _really_ happening. You're not some superhero in a comic book. You're Danny Fenton, teenager in Amity Park."

Tucker carefully studied his fingers. "And I chickened out on you. I questioned how good of a friend you were. How good of a _person_ you were. I was really scared of the idea that you could randomly decide that I should die." He blew out his breath and set down his spork. "That was selfish and childish of me. I _know_ you're my best friend and you'll never hurt me. So, while I'm still absolutely petrified of the idea of you being a ghost… and that weird aura you've got that sends chills up my spine… I want to be your friend. I want to help you."

He was silent for a moment. "What I'm trying to say is I apologize for acting like an idiot yesterday even though you weren't there to witness it and had no idea I was doing it. And I'm asking if you'll allow me to be your friend still, even though I was acting horribly." He held out his hand for Danny to shake. "We good?"

Danny just blinked at him. "You're… apologizing… to… me?" He shook his head in confusion. "But _I'm_ the one that acted like a little kid yesterday, blowing up at the fact that I couldn't pick of a silly cheese fry."

"You gonna shake my hand or not?" Tucker let a grin drift onto his face. "_Then_, you can apologize."

"Fine." Danny reached up and snagged his best friend's hand. "I apologize for acting like a two-year old."

"Apology accepted." Tucker picked up his spork and dug into the ground beef Salisbury steak. "I spent all night trying to figure some stuff out about you. I've even been holed up in the library all morning, skipping classes, trying to pull some more information together." He grinned. "I've got it. I know what you are."

"Really? What?"

Tucker glanced around, searching for Sam. He'd just have to tell this twice if she didn't show up. "Alright, I'll tell you, but you have to help me tell Sam later." At Danny's nod, he took a big bite of the instant mashed potatoes and started. "You walked into the portal and turned it on from the inside – you must have hit a button or a switch or brushed up against a loose connection, completing a circuit or something – but the point is that you turned it on and it essentially electrocuted you. You should've died with that much energy flowing through you."

Danny asked, "Why didn't I then?"

"Here's the kicker," Tucker pointed his spork at him, "you did."

Danny paled as he stared at Tucker in disbelief. "What?"

"You had to have died, that's the only way you could have a ghost at _all_. But listen. Normally when a person dies their ghost is created in the instant of their death. A person _has_ to have _died_ in order for their ghost to form. But you weren't hit with just any electricity… you were hit with electricity that was mixed with spectral energy."

"So?" Danny was picking at his tray with an odd expression. "I'm still dead."

"No, you're not. At least not in the normal sense. _Normally_ a ghost is created when a person dies. Because of all the spectral energy floating around, your ghost got 'super-charged' and was created a split-second too early. It's impossible for two of you to exist at the same time in the same place, so you – who was still a split-second from _really_ dying – merged with the ghost that would have been created when you actually died. Get it?"

Danny shook his head and Tucker sighed, deciding to plunge ahead with the explanation anyways. "Ghosts are inherently better at surviving electricity, being energy themselves, so when your ghost merged with you, _you_ gained that ability to be better at surviving electrocution too. You got just strong enough in that split-second that you managed to survive the blast." Tucker grinned happily at his explanation. "Dying is what kept you alive."

"That's…"

"It's a total paradox," Tucker continued happily. "You've got a ghost, which means that you can't be alive. Only you've never died, so you can't be dead. The whole _point _is that you're neither dead _nor_ alive."

Danny finally just sighed and took a bite of his own lunch. "You said you knew what I was."

Tucker glanced at his friend, smiling at the life that sparkled in his expressive eyes. Danny hadn't dropped into 'dead' mode yet. "There are three states of life. There are two that are really well known – alive and dead. But there _is_ a third one. It's completely theoretical, but it's got to exist."

"What?"

"An ascended form of life; a half-way spot between the world of the living and the dead. Up until now, the ranks of these 'ascended' beings consisted of a spattering of the normal undead like zombies, immortals, demi-gods, faeries, demons, and things like that. But I think that you classify in with them – not dead, not alive, but something _else_ entirely."

"Oh." Danny took a small bite of his hamburger steak.

"As to _what_ you are, like a name, that's a search for the pointless. I mean, names for that third state of life vary depending on what culture…"

Suddenly Danny's eyes _shifted_. Tucker shivered, trailing off, transfixed by the unnatural gleam in his best friend's gaze. There seemed to be flickers of emerald lights shimmering under the normal blue. Then Danny blinked, shaking his head and returning to normal. Shooting Tucker a weary grin, Danny said, "She's coming."

Tucker raised an eyebrow and glanced around the cafeteria, not bothering to ask who 'she' was. "I don't see her," he said, trying to ignore the odd look on Danny's face. "How can you tell?"

"Rainbows," Danny muttered softly. He shook his head and picked up a slimy carrot, ignoring Tucker's confused look. "Rainbows."

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Sam grabbed the last salad from the cafeteria, staring down at it in distaste. She'd forgotten to grab a lunch from home that morning and so she was reduced to school food. The salad was bound to be at least a week old, full of genetically-enhanced vegetables rather than the organic kind, and the salad had the high probability of having germs on the lettuce. With a sigh she stuffed the salad back into its slot and walked down the cafeteria line, scoring only a handful of old carrots, a spoonful of mushy peas, and a glob of (probably) radioactive mashed potatoes.

As she punched in her number at the checkout, she thought that all-in-all it had been a horrible day so far. She hadn't managed to find Danny _or_ Tucker that morning, _and_ she'd been roped into helping that stupid volunteer drive _again_. She didn't really mind helping with things that made sense… but a drive to drum up volunteers when they had nothing for those volunteers to do but find more volunteers?

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered and stalked across the cafeteria towards her normal table. The two boys were already there, the annoying beret-wearing one staring at her in surprise.

"Rainbows?" Tucker asked, turning to Danny, "What about rainbows?"

"Tucker Foley," Sam ground out, ignoring the odd question. "I haven't forgiven you for last night. How dare you say those kind of things…"

"Danny forgave me already," he said quickly, gesturing towards the black-haired boy playing with his food.

Sam dropped into the seat next to Danny, steadfastly not looking in Tucker's direction. She'd forgive him… eventually. Until then he could just suffer her cold shoulder. "How is your day going Danny?"

A small smile flickered onto Danny's face. "Better than yesterday." His eyes sparkled when he glanced up at her. "Still creepy, but better."

"Excellent." Sam drifted into silence, not really knowing what to say. Emotions were churning inside of her and ever she couldn't really figure out what they were trying to tell her. Happiness, fear, frustration, giddiness, elation… Instead, she simply reached over with a free hand and placed it on his arm. His skin was warm and reassuringly normal under her fingers. "I'm really glad you're better."

Sam gasped as the temperature of Danny's skin suddenly dropped. It wasn't really _cold_, but the difference was definite and sent chills up her arm. Danny's eyes were forcibly closed, his breathing harsh, his breath fogging softly in the warm air of the cafeteria.

"Danny?"

Instead of answering, he pulled his arm out of her fingers and buried his face in his hands, digging his fingers into his scalp. His whole body was tensed, almost shivering.

"Danny?" Both Sam and Tucker echoed. Sam carefully touched his shoulder, wondering at the impossible cold that seemed to be emanating off of her best friend. The actual air temperature was beginning to drop, her own body beginning to react to the cold air around them.

Haunted blue eyes opened, his gaze skipping right past them and scanning the cafeteria. Sam shuddered when a small growl slid out of her friend's mouth and his eyes narrowed. When he did that she couldn't really help the brief burst of fear that zinged through her mind. Her whole body was screaming at her that Danny was a predator and that she should be running.

Then, inexplicably, his eyes were focused on her. Green flares were sparkling in his eyes like tiny fireworks as he stared straight into her eyes… no, past her eyes. It was like he was staring through her and into her very soul. Her body was moving of its own accord now, her brain no longer having any say over what was happening. She drew away from the intense power of his stare, toppling out of her chair to stay away from him.

"Danny," she whispered, her voice raspy with fear. "Danny, stop."

He didn't. His chair scraped across the floor of the cafeteria as he got up and took a few steps towards her. Sam scuttled backwards, glancing around the room. Students were shivering and drawing closer to each other, staring around the cafeteria with varying degrees of fear on their faces. Nobody seemed to be looking at them… yet.

Her attention was suddenly jerked back to the boy that was crouched over her, balanced perfectly on his toes, a distant smile on his face and an impossibly dead gleam in his eyes. "Danny, stop," she tried again, gasping when he leaned a little bit closer and a wave of supernaturally cold air dropped onto her. "Danny…"

When he reached out his hand, her entire body tensed. Her mind shrieked that he was going for her soul, her spirit, her _life_… and she reacted on instinct. A hand came up to slap his hand out of the way. _It went straight through his hand_. Panic welled up inside of her.

Two warm hands clasped around her shoulders and jerked her backwards. She had just enough time to register Tucker's beret and glasses before she was tugged forcibly away from Danny and nearly propelled out of the cafeteria.

"Did… did… did you see that?" she stuttered as the doors slammed behind them. "My hand went right through his."

"Yes," Tucker said grimly. "I _told_ you he was dangerous."

"He… he… he was…" Sam shook her head, trying to get a thought to work in her head other than _my hand went right through his_.

"I think it's you." Tucker pushed her into a stairwell and sat her down. He crouched in front of her, glancing over his shoulder at the cafeteria. "I think it's got something to do with _you_."

"Me?"

Tucker nodded, his eyes glittering fearfully in the harsh lights. "He didn't go after anyone else… just you. He had an entire cafeteria full of people and after you fell out of your chair, you weren't even the closest person. He was going after _you_ specifically."

Sam licked her lips. "Are you saying this is my fault?" She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself, closing her eyes.

"No. I don't know what's going on, but it's _not_ your fault."

Sam felt warm fingers touch her chin and she opened her eyes. Concern was sparkling in Tucker's eyes. "You okay?" he asked.

She nodded. "I'll be fine."

"I'm going to find out how Danny's doing, okay? I'll be right back. Stay here." Tucker pushed himself to his feet and vanished down the hallway.

Sam, after sitting still for a moment, followed. "He's my friend too," she rationalized softly as she walked slowly past the rows of lockers, "and Tucker can't tell me what to do."

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Tucker stumbled back into the cafeteria, his eyes already scanning the crowds of teenagers. _It was Sam_, he knew deep down inside, _Danny had been reacting to Sam._ Getting Danny and Sam separated had been the only thing he could think of to stop whatever was going on. He wasn't sure at all why or how or even _what_, but he _knew_ that Sam was causing it. Sam, and something to do with rainbows.

Around him, the students were still acting like they had just seen a horrifying movie, but their reactions were dying away. Danny was nowhere to be seen and, based off the other students, probably wasn't around anymore. "Damn it," Tucker hissed.

He needed to find Danny. He needed answers. He needed to talk to… someone. He had too many theories and not enough data.

A breath of cold air trickled down the collar of his shirt and Tucker shivered, instinctively drawing away from something he couldn't see – something invisible. For a second he just stood there, feeling the paranormal frigidness drain away, his brain throwing facts together like a terrifying train crash.

Paranormal. Invisible. Cold. Leaving the cafeteria. Reacting to Sam. Going after…

"Sam." He twirled and raced back out of the cafeteria.

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Sam was just about to round the corner to head to the cafeteria when Danny shimmered into view in front of her. "Danny!" she hissed in surprised, jumping backwards. Dark shadows were sneaking up around them, darkening the planes of his face into something unnatural and demonic. His normally blue eyes were nearly lost to the green sparkles flaring in his eyes.

His feet slid forwards, his head tipping to the side as he stared straight through her. A few more steps and she backed away, her back slamming painfully into a bank of lockers. "Danny," she breathed, "I'm not afraid of you. I'm not afraid. You just need to back away from me a little. Just a few steps. Then we'll be good, okay Danny? Please?" Her monotone rambling was doing absolutely nothing. That powerful feeling of helpless fear was welling up in her and Danny didn't seem to even hear her.

Then Tucker was there. He slid between them, his feet catching on the broken tiles and stumbling ungracefully to a stop. "Danny," he said with a catch in his voice. Tucker backed up until he was pressed against Sam. "Danny, stay away from her."

Danny hesitated, a confused look on his face. "Where?" he echoing voice wondered, "where are you hiding the rainbows?" His haunted eyes searched the hallway before he focused on them with a pained note in his creepy voice.

"Rainbows?" Tucker asked, swallowing heavily. His fingers scrambled through his pockets searching for something he could use to keep Danny away from them. "Danny, what rainbows? Danny you need to stop. We can't be friends if you can't stop."

Sam could feel Tucker shivering as that supernatural fear swept through them. "He'll s-still be our friend," she whispered, "he's n-not d-doing it on purpose."

Tucker shot her a wide-eyed look of panic. He held up the only thing he had found – his graphing calculator – like a knife and stared at his friend. "Danny…"

When Danny took another step forwards, his eyes focused straight through Tucker to Sam, Tucker swiped at him with the calculator. Unsurprisingly, the calculator traveled through the boy's arm just like Sam's hand did earlier.

Without any other ideas, nearly frantic with the instinctive panic that was swamping both of them as Danny's presence focused more and more on them, Tucker tried again. This time, though, his calculator beeped when his finger touched a small button.

Danny recoiled instantly, the green lights vanishing from his eyes. He whimpered, rubbing his arm.

Tucker fumbled with his calculator for a second, his finger finding the same yellow button again. He pressed it, and Danny backed away even farther when the annoying beep sounded.

"Tucker?" Danny whispered, blinking furiously and scooting backwards until his back hit the lockers on the other side of the hallway. "Sam?"

"Danny, what's going on?" Tucker asked.

"Rainbows," Danny rasped softly, sliding down to the ground, his eyes starting to sparkle with life. "I couldn't get away from the rainbows."

"What does that _mean?_" Sam pushed out from behind Tucker but stayed carefully on her side of the hallway.

"You feel like rainbows and I can't stop…" Danny breathed as the bell rang and the hallway flooded with people oblivious to the plight of the three friends against the lockers.

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By the time the initial rush of students had passed, Danny had propelled himself through the front doors, down the steps, and off of the school grounds. He was skipping school and he didn't care at all. He needed time to think… he needed time to figure out what had just _happened_.

"Damn it!" he screamed, punching a tree and yelping at the pain that speared up his arm. "Damn it." He rubbed his bruised knuckles as he stalked down the sidewalk away from school.

He'd been doing so _good_ too. He'd managed to hold off that 'dead' feeling until lunch. And then there had been that really weird _feeling_… After that everything had just spiraled completely out of control. He hadn't been able to break out of it, and Sam had been so close, and those strange ripples in the air where just getting worse and worse… and better and better…

How much longer before he couldn't be around Sam at all? And then there had been whatever Tucker had done with his calculator. That had _hurt_. It had been like getting zapped with a large static shock.

"I can't handle this," he muttered, sinking into a noon shadow behind a garbage bin. "I don't want to do this anymore. I want it all to go away." He took a deep breath, burying his hands in his arms. "I wish I was just normal again."

He stayed in his dark shadow, curled up and struggling to get his mind wrapped around what had just happened, silently watching the shadows grow as minutes – and then hours – slipped past. Two days. Two freaking hellish days and he was already losing his mind. "Why did this happen to me?" he whispered into the air. "Why won't it _stop_?"

Out of the corner of his eye, something flickered in the afternoon sun. He flinched, twisting around to stare into the shadows. The tiny ghost vanished the second he tried to look straight at it. Insubstantial and thoughtless as the wind itself, the translucent ghost scampered and twirled around the edge of his vision.

Danny watched the tiny spirit play as he sighed and leaned back against the dingy wall. "I hate this." He stared up into the sliver of sky visible between the two buildings, the small ghost the only thing that could hear his whispered confession. "I scared my two best friends." He shivered for a second, pain flickering into his eyes. "I… I… chased Sam. I was hunting her." His voice was barely audible as he said that.

"Why?" He turned his head, groaning when his companion disappeared from his sight again. "Why did I chase her?" He thumped his head back against the wall. "Why couldn't I stop? I _knew_ what I was doing that _entire freaking time_. And I couldn't stop myself."

"I'm no better than you," he muttered when the ghost came to a stop and hovered, green eyes glowing dimly at it gazed at him. "You feed off of humans – that's just what you do."

There was no stopping the thought that came next. It hurt. It stabbed into his heart with a ferocity that brought tears of pain to his eyes. "So do I. I feed off of humans too." A tear trickled down his cheek and he closed his eyes. "I fed off of Sam. Maybe that's why…"

He was suddenly jerked to his feet and out of his thoughts by the two large and powerful arms holding him off the ground. His eyes flew open in surprise. "Dash…"

"I missed you after school, freak. It took a while to find you," the football star leered, his crooked smile growing when he noticed the trails of the tears left on Danny's face. "You been crying? You _scared_, loser?" He laughed, dropping Danny to the ground. "You see that guys? _Danielle_ has been crying!"

"Leave me alone," Danny said, struggling to his feet and searching for a way out of this. He cursed when he finally saw that Dash's 'friends' were artfully blocking every exit. _I know better than to be alone after school… it's this stupid ghost stuff. It's going to get me killed – if it hasn't already._ "What do you want?"

"I had a bad day today," Dash answered calmly, cracking his knuckles. "That idiot Lancer almost gave me detention and I failed an English test. I need to take some of my aggression out on someone."

"Can't you find someone else?"

"It's your turn, Fent-wuss." The large jock curled his fingers into a fist and gazed down at Danny with a smile. "Now, you remember the rules, don't cha? You go running for help or tell someone what happened, I bring this to a new level." Dash's grin grew almost manic. "Your _girlfriend_ needs to stay safe, right?"

Danny closed his eyes, turning his head away from the larger teenager, silently berating himself for getting into this until the first punch landed. Biting back a scream of pain as his thoughts scattered, he clutched his nose and felt the blood start to gush onto his hands. A well-placed kick to his stomach robbed him of the ability to breathe and he collapsed to the ground.

Opening his watering eyes, Danny coughed and tried to get his lungs to start working again. Dash Baxter was standing over him with a grin. "Serves you right, freak, for being such a loser." A few of his friends laughed. "See you around."

Danny wiped his arm under his bleeding nose and watched them walk out of the alley. They were gone almost as quickly as they had come. No witnesses… no crime. "What, no parting insult?" he rasped darkly as soon as his body managed to get some air. Rich, red blood trickled down his shirt as he got to his knees and waited for his nose to stop bleeding. "Stupid bullies… stupid gangs…"

The tiny ghost danced a little at the edges of his watery vision, its eyes glowing much more brightly than before. "I bet you liked that," he muttered sourly. "Bloodthirsty, stupid ghosts."

When his nose finally decided to stop imitating a faucet, he carefully felt his nose, wincing at the pain, and got to his feet. His head spun for a second and he closed his eyes, waiting for the world to settle back down. Almost automatically, his feet set him on the path towards Sam's house. She always cleaned him up after one of these 'accidents'.

But he stumbled to a stop, still hidden in the shadows. "I can't go see her." His shoulders sagged and he felt a small piece of him crumble away. "I'll just try to… feed off of her again." He licked his lips, trying to figure out where to go. "Sam and Tucker both probably hate me." He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself and ignoring his blood-soaked T-shirt.

Home. Home suddenly sounded like an excellent idea. He'd been so against telling his family… but now he just didn't know what to do. He was scared, confused, and alone. "Go home and tell Mom and Dad everything. They can fix it."

One bloody, bedraggled, and tired teenager dragged himself out of the alley and down the street towards his house. The simple thought of getting rid of everything almost brought a smile to his face.

His parents would fix this and he'd be back to normal.

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Hovering over the alley just far enough away so that the distracted kid wouldn't sense it, a bald and rotting vulture casually flapped its wings. It had finally located the boy during lunch and had gotten a little too close. The boy was more sensitive to ghosts than it had been expecting. He had realized the vulture was there and it had been forced to retreat.

It ground its beak together and swirled in a few more lazy circles in the blazing sky, uncaring about the miniature drama unfolding in the alley. But when the boy stood up to head to his next location, the spectral vulture quietly followed.

--In _real life_, the world doesn't always make sense.

(end chapter 5)


	7. There Isn't Always A Simple Fix

_*edited 1/2009*_

**Real Life**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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(chapter 6)

In Which There Isn't Always a Simple Fix

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Danny reached out to open the front door to his house, but it jumped open just in front of his fingers. For a split second Danny wondered if he was the one who had done it, but then his sister came around the door. Her tall form stumbled to a stop as she took in the ragged appearance of her brother. She blinked at him, then raised an eyebrow and stepped backwards. "_MOM!_" she screamed towards the kitchen.

The smile that crossed her face was a strange combination of concern and evil delight. "You are so dead," she said, leaning her shoulder against the doorframe and hugging her books to her stomach. "Who did it this time? The garbage can? The stairs? You know she's not going to keep buying it."

"Shut it, Jazz." Danny pushed past his sister. "I'm going to talk with her, tell her everything, alright?"

"Seriously?" She seemed taken aback for a second. "Just the 'Dash's punching bag' thing, or are you going to tell her why you've been acting so freakish these past few days too?"

He turned around, staring at her in surprise. "What do you know?"

"Jazz?" their mother called, pushing through the kitchen door and peering at them. "Danny? _DANNY!_ You're covered in blood!"

He smiled faintly at her. "I… fell."

Behind them, Jazz snorted and rolled her eyes. "So much for 'telling her everything'," she whispered.

Maddie knelt in front of her son, carefully touching his nose and wincing in sympathy when Danny tried to squirm away from her fingers. "That looks like it's going to swell. I'm going to get an ice pack and a wash cloth."

When their mother vanished into the kitchen, Danny shot a glare in his sister's direction. "I'm _going_ to talk to her. You don't need to be annoying."

"I'm the big sister; it's my job to be annoying." She laughed softly and tipped her head to the side. "Make sure you mention the evil microwave."

"What?" His eyes widened.

"I know," she purred, backing out the door. "Microwaves are _so_ scary."

She closed the door, but before Danny could reach over to open the door and ask her what she meant, what she had seen, what she _knew_… his mother was back. "Here we go," Maddie smiled, hefting a small bag of frozen vegetables. "I couldn't find the ice pack, but this will work." Directing her son over to the couch, she had him sit down and she carefully washed some of the blood off his face. "We'll have to wait a few hours to make sure it's not broken. Hold this on your face for a while." She held out the veggies.

"No, Mom, I'm fine," Danny argued, trying to push the bag of frozen vegetables away. "I need to tell you…"

"It was that Baxter kid did this, I'll bet," Maddie said, snaking her arm past Danny's protesting hands and pressing the bag against his nose. "It'll stop the swelling, sweetie. Please keep it on for a few minutes. I'm going to call the school. This is…"

Danny grabbed the veggies and groaned. "It's not Dash. I need to talk to you about something _else_." In an attempt to get her to settle down a little, he grabbed the bag and held it against his throbbing nose. The cold felt good.

"You could've been seriously hurt, Danny. You didn't just fall down."

"I'm _fine_. But I was in the lab two days ago…"

"I don't really care about the lab right now, honey. We're going to need to get that checked to make sure it's not broken. It looks like you got punched hard."

Danny took a deep breath, slowly letting it out. It figures that he'd want to talk about something ghost related for once and his mother would be completely unreceptive. He'd have to try a new tactic. "I know how the portal turned on."

Maddie hesitated, interest sparkling in her eyes. "How could you know that?" She reached over and moved the frozen vegetables a little to study his nose. "That looks so painful…"

"I turned it on."

She completely stopped this time. "Danny," she said, but paused. "Danny, you shouldn't lie about things like that. If your father and I couldn't even get it turned…"

Danny forced down the grin that was trying to show on his face. He had her attention! "There was a button. You must have forgotten to turn off the power and I hit a button. It turned on."

"But…" She shook her head. "But you don't believe in ghosts… the psychosomatic trigger…"

"Yeah, I do." Danny pulled the veggies away his face so that he could see his mother better. "Or, I did – just for the right second, or something. I turned it on."

Instead of the happiness he'd been expecting when he told her, his mother looked angry. "Daniel Fenton, what in the world were you doing down in the lab messing with our equipment? How many times have we _told_ you to stay away from our things?"

"But Mom…"

"No 'buts' Danny. You could have been seriously injured, if not killed! There were _terawatts_ of energy flowing through that portal when it turned on. One random spark and you could've died! Not to mention the fact that you could have been hurt and no one would have known you were down there…"

"Sam and Tucker were there." Danny bit his lip, wishing he could take back the words as soon as they left his mouth.

His mother's expression clouded over even more. "You put your friends in danger too? Daniel James Fenton… You could have gotten them _killed_!"

"But…"

"Grounded. Get to your room." Maddie frowned and pointed unnecessarily towards the stairs. "And keep those veggies on your nose for about fifteen more minutes."

Danny didn't move. He leaned forwards, wanting her to understand. He needed to talk to her. He needed to explain what had happened. She _had_ to listen to him. "But Mom…"

"Daniel," she ground out, pressing her fingers into her eyes, "there's a reason we _lock the door_. You could have _died._"

"I _did!_" He let out a breath, feeling his stomach unclench a little. Maddie's hands dropped from her face and into her lap, staring at him with an unreadable expression. "I did," he repeated softer. "I think I'm a ghost."

"Danny, that's not funny."

He stared at her, feeling the ground fall out from underneath his feet. He'd imagined this conversation going a million different ways on the walk home – she'd be confused, or sad, or scared, or maybe even strangely happy. Never once did he think that she just wouldn't believe him. "But…" he stuttered for a second, trying to figure out what to do next. "But…" His fingers tightened around the bag of frozen vegetables. "I can prove it!"

"Danny." She closed her eyes with a sigh.

He ignored her, focusing on his fingers and trying to ignore the pounding ache of his nose. He'd been dropping things all day; falling straight through his hand and there had never been anything he could do about it. It was always accompanied by that tingly feeling of his fingers falling asleep. If only he could make his fingers feel that way again, maybe he could make it happen on purpose. He could prove it. His mother had to believe him when she saw _that_.

"Just go to your room, please."

"Mom…" he looked up at her, begging her with his eyes to give him more of a chance.

Maddie sighed and stood up. She racked her fingers through her short hair. "I don't want to hear it, Danny. When you are ready to tell me the _truth_ about what happened to you, come find me. Until then, grounded."

"That _is_ the truth!" he blurted. "I died two days ago…" The kitchen door swung closed behind her, leaving him alone in the living room. "… and I'm feeding off my best friend," he continued quietly, almost to himself as tears started to burn in his eyes, "and microwaves hurt, and there are ghosts _everywhere_, and I can turn into a ghost, and I have no idea what's going on."

His fingers ached with the frozen vegetables when he finally got to his feet. "And I'm scared," he breathed, trudging up the stairs towards his room.

He collapsed onto his bed. Staring up at the ceiling and holding the cold bag to his nose, he didn't care about the tears that were leaking out of his eyes. Over and over in his head, he tried to figure out a way to get his mother to believe him. He shot down every idea until his mind couldn't come up with any more.

"It's stupid. This whole thing is stupid," he whispered darkly. "Why _should_ she believe me? The entire _situation_ is stupid and impossible."

When Maddie set his supper on his desk a couple hours later, Danny didn't look up. Finally, unable to rack his brain for more ideas, he just fell asleep.

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Tucker skidded through the front door of his house, quickly kicking off his shoes and dashing into the kitchen. "Hey Dad!" he panted, glancing around. "Do you know where Mom is?"

"I think she's in our room, reading a book," Maurice muttered from behind his newspaper. "How was school?"

"Wonderful!" Tucker called over his shoulder as he slipped out of the kitchen and down the hallway. He stuck his head around the door and grinned when he saw his mother sitting in the large rocking chair. "Mom?"

She glanced up from her book to study her son. "You ran the entire way home?" A small smile played on her face.

Closing the door behind him, Tucker dropped onto her bed. He nodded. "I need to do some serious theorizing. I need someone who can be helpful and nonjudgmental… and will forget everything I say when I walk back out the door."

Janet put her bookmark into her novel and set it aside. "You remember the rules for this 'forgetting' thing?"

"This isn't something illegal! It's about Danny."

"You're going to tell me what you were talking about last night?" She steepled her fingers, her eyes narrowing. "And why you thought he was dead the night before that?"

After a quiet second, Tucker nodded. "Danny got into an accident in his parent's lab two nights ago. He was electrocuted."

Janet gasped. "Is he going to be okay?"

"I don't know," Tucker said softly. "He's been so weird since the accident. I'm trying to figure out what's wrong, but I can barely _talk_ to him." He shot her a hard look. "And remember, you're going to forget all of this and you're never going to tell him I'm telling you anything."

"His parents don't want people to know?"

"Not yet." Tucker stared at his parents' quilt for a moment. "See, his parents built this window into the afterlife…" he paused and shook his head. "I still can't believe I'm saying this. They built a window into the afterlife and it looks like it actually _worked_. Danny was too close when it turned on. It shocked him really good. I thought… I thought it killed him."

The small woman pushed herself out of her chair and settled down next to her son. She wrapped her arm around Tucker's shoulders and gave him a squeeze. "That's horrible. You should have told me what happened! We could've gone to the hospital to visit him. Maybe gotten him a card or something…" Her eyes glittered suddenly.

"You can't send him a card! You promised to forget all about this." Tucker scowled at his mother until she relented and smiled. "Anyways, he's better today… but he's different. Something's changed about him."

"He looked just fine yesterday."

"It's not how he _looks_," Tucker said. Shrugging off his mother's arm, he collapsed backwards on her bed and closed his eyes. "It's so confusing. He's changed… but he hasn't. So far as I can tell, only Sam and I have noticed."

He felt his mother shift on the bed as she lay down next to him. "How so?"

"He's got this dead aura around him," Tucker mumbled, struggling to put his feelings into words. "Sometimes I look into his eyes and there's nothing there – like he's a zombie or something. He's just… scary." He turned his head to the side and opened his eyes. "I'm always looking over my shoulder when I'm around him, worrying about where he is. I can't take my eyes off of him. It's not like he's going to attack me or something… but…" He sighed. "Does that make any sense at all?"

"Some. But I'm not sure how I can help you with this."

Tucker shook his head. "The part I'm trying to figure out has to do with Sam."

"Sam?" Janet turned her head to look at Tucker.

"Danny's been following Sam around like a lost puppy dog these past two days. He's always looking at her, touching her arm or her fingers, and he gets a lot closer to her than he ever used to."

"Maybe he just likes her. It sounds like a crush to me." Janet smiled.

"But why now?" Tucker groaned, unable to fully explain his problem. "Before the accident, they were just friends! It was like some switch was thrown. And he keeps muttering about rainbows when he's around her. Sam… rainbows!"

"Sometimes," his mother said after a moment, "after an accident, people's views of the world suddenly change. They see more worth in watching the sunset and smiling at pretty girls." She nudged Tucker gently. "Or it could be that Danny's just seeing something new in Sam. It might be just a coincidence that you're noticing it now."

Tucker shook his head. "It's not _that_. I know it. He's drawn to her like a moth to a flame… or a drug addict towards his next fix. He can't stop himself from being near her. This isn't a crush thing."

"You think it's got something to do with the accident in his parents' lab."

"I _know_ it does. I just can't figure out why… or how…" Tucker closed his eyes. "It's got something to do with rainbows, and ghosts, and that accident…" he trailed off suddenly, sitting up, his eyes glittering. "Did you hear about the ghost attack in the park yesterday?"

She shook her head. "There wasn't anything on the news this morning about a ghost. There was something about some girls collapsing."

A grin was growing on Tucker's face. "Yeah. There was a ghost too – some octopus thing. That's how I got the split lip."

Janet waited quietly, her expression dubious at the idea of there being an actual ghost in the park.

"When the ghost was there, everything felt weird. All of our emotions were going haywire. And that ghost was attracted to those girls. There were hundreds of people in that park, but the ectopus-thing was attacking those specific girls…"

"Are you trying to say that Danny's following Sam for the same reason the 'ghost' in the park was following those poor girls?" She raised an eyebrow.

Tucker smiled. "No, but I'm saying they're connected." He jumped off the bed, and glanced back when his mother levered herself up onto her elbows. "I bet all ghosts are attracted to certain kinds of people… or maybe just certain situations." He headed towards the door. "And it's all got to do with rainbows." He nodded to himself. "And emotions."

"All ghosts?" Janet asked, confused. "What do ghosts have to do with Danny?"

"Everything!" Tucker grabbed the doorknob. "Danny's following Sam around because she's got rainbows, whatever that means." He yanked the door open and vanished out into the hallway. After a second he stuck his head back through the doorway to grin at his mother. "Remember, you've forgotten we had this conversation, right?"

"What conversation?" she said bemusedly.

"Exactly!"

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Danny curled up in his bed, shivering, searching for an elusive bit of warmth. He yanked the covers up around his shoulders with a small groan, muttering darkly about his still-throbbing nose. He was a heavy sleeper and didn't usually wake up during the night; especially from something like being cold.

His shivering growing to an uncontrollable level, Danny slipped out of bed with his two blankets wrapped securely around him. "Stupid thermostat," he hissed softly. Trudging out into the hallway, he glared sleepily at the small device that controlled the temperature of the house, unable to read the numbers in the dark. He fumbled for a button, pressed it, and the small LCD panel lit up. "81 degrees!" he said in surprise. It wasn't cold… it was _warm_. Really warm.

Closing his eyes, he sank down to the floor and pressed his back against the wall. "Why am I so cold?" The blankets around him didn't seem to be doing a thing. He felt cold down to the very center of his soul. It wasn't even really just a cold feeling – it was a pervasive, almost depressing chill that had settled around his heart.

After a few moments of shivering as a lump in the hallway, he struggled to his feet and carefully made his way down the hallway. Stopping in front of his parent's partially closed door, he bit his lip in thought before nudging the door open and slipping into the dark room. A fan buzzed loudly from a dresser as he padded over to gaze down at his parents.

Both of them were sound asleep. Jack even had the covers mostly thrown off his bulky form. Danny felt a convulsive shiver slide through him as he watched his parents sleep. "It's just me," he mouthed into the darkness. Backing away from the bed, he tripped over the trailing blankets and teetered for a heartbeat before catching his balance and leaving the room.

For a few moments, he hesitated with his hand on the door. It'd be so easy to walk over and shake his mother awake. She'd do something to help him, she had to. He was so cold… but would she even believe him? He quietly pulled the door shut and walked softly back towards his room.

"I just want to sleep," he muttered morosely as he dropped back onto his bed, the thick blankets still around him. The insidious freezing was actually starting to make him feel sick. He swallowed thickly. "Why am I so cold?"

He shuddered and finally flipped on the lamp next to his bed. With the light on, he could clearly see his breath fogging in the air. "Wonderful," he whispered, "I'm going to die of hypothermia now or something."

Shivering, he yanked the blankets over his head and brought his legs up to his chest, curling into a ball. His breath was warm against his fingers. "This is a ghost thing, I'm willing to bet," he growled as he fought off a yawn. "Will my life never get _easier?_ Now I can't sleep anymore?"

His eyes drifted closed despite the cold that was invading his senses. In his half-awake state, the teenager tipped his head to the side with a groan as the freezing temperatures began to make his head hurt. It was a sharp, cold pain that was lodged just behind his temples. Dreamily, he focused on the ache with the half-wished hope that it would go away. It was a weird headache; it felt cold. Cold, and weightless, and powerful, and wild…

Shivering as an electric shock suddenly sizzled through him, he curled into a tighter ball for just a heartbeat. Then he relaxed, stretching out, his eyes still closed, still too sleepy to wonder why the confining blankets had seemingly vanished. "It's not cold anymore," he whispered in surprise, letting a cool powerful feeling thrum through his muscles as he stretched. He felt weird… not quite solid… but he wasn't awake enough yet to care.

He smiled sleepily as distant smells slid through him: apples, cinnamon, and a tangy metallic scent. There was something else too; a distant and pervasive sound that drummed into him like a heartbeat. It wasn't really a sound, it was more like an impossibly low rumbling that he felt in his stomach, one that was rhythmic and steady. A heartbeat, almost. Something deep down inside of him growled softly at the noise, egging him into getting up and finding the source of the impossible sound.

"It's like that octopus," he murmured, "just more powerful." He wrinkled his forehead. "How do I _know_ that?"

The question stirred him out of whatever state he was in and two electric green eyes flickered open. The room was a blurry mess of darkness. He twisted his head, blinking in surprise when he saw a figure sitting in the room with him, blinking right back at him. He jerked back for as second, then studied the ghost a bit more closely. The strange creature was burned and sizzled, sitting in the ragged remains of a black outfit, jade-colored eyes shining through the shadows. "I remember you," Danny muttered, watching his companion mouth the words along with him. "I saw you yesterday."

He floated up into the air a few inches, gazing down at the blurry mass he hoped was his bed, harshly tamping down on the fear that was trying to claw at his mind. "I'm a ghost… again. _Okay._ I can handle this, no need to panic or anything, right? It's not permanent. I think."

Closing his eyes, he tried to remember what happened last time he had turned from a ghost to a human. Sam had touched his chin; she had startled him. What else? He struggled to remember. There had to be _something_. Wracking his brain came up with nothing.

Finally he shook his head in dismay. "Maybe it's a timed thing… maybe it just wears off." He criss-crossed his legs and shot a glance back towards his reflection in the mirror. "I just have to wait, I guess." He ran his sizzled hands over his face and tried _really_ hard not to think. Thinking would lead him to wondering about ghosts, which in turn would bring up the fact that ghosts were incredibly scary, which in turn would make him think about the fact that _he_ was a ghost – even though he wasn't dead – and he was scary in and of his own right, which in turn would lead to remembering how Sam and Tucker had looked at him, which in turn would…

He dug his fingers into his hair, groaning, as the panicky feeling in his chest grew and clenched at his throat. He was really lousy at not the not-thinking thing. "I wish I had lungs so I could take a deep breath," he groused softly, shivering at how eerily his voice echoed. "I'll just have to distract myself then, right? Like, by wondering how the freaking hell I can talk and yet can't _breathe_."

Fingers dug a bit deeper into his skull, panic overwhelming his brain for a moment, his eyes squeezing shut. "Okay, okay, okay… calm down. Don't think about the not breathing thing. Okay. This ghost thing isn't permanent. It'll wear off. Just… Okay." He opened one eye and caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head, focusing on the mirror. "How about the mirror…"

"It's so weird," he whispered to himself, trying to keep himself talking in the hope that the sound of his voice would keep some of the fear away, "everything is so blurry… but not in the mirror. I can see my reflection just fine." Drifting over, he settled a few feet away, studying his reflection. Then, on a thought, he reached out and touched the mirror.

He had figured his fingers would go straight through just like the blankets had fallen through him when he had turned into a ghost and how he could pass through everything else. But his fingers touched the cool surface and he splayed his burned hand against the mirror. Tiny tendrils of frost materialized on the mirror around his fingers and remained there for a moment after he pulled his hand back away. The ghostly negative of a handprint. "What…?" he wondered softly.

"That's something I can touch." Then he tipped his head to the side, his eyebrows furrowing, his brain scrambling back to the feel of Sam's warm fingers against his skin. "No, that's _two_ things I can touch. The mirror… and Sam."

His nose wrinkled as a fresh wave a smells washed over him. "What _is_ that?" he said, distracted by the overpowering scents. Apples, cinnamon… and metal? He drifted a little away from the mirror, his eyes closing and his nose instinctively searching. "Apples… that's familiar," he breathed. "I remember that smell."

Electric eyes flickered open as he passed through a wall like it wasn't even there. The cinnamon smell was stronger in this room. It was laced with honey, warm and fuzzy as it tingled up his nose and scurried through his mind.

He passed by the source of the honey-cinnamon smell, much more interested in the spicy scent of the apples. "Apples," he whispered once more, pausing in the air as his mind tried to remember where he'd smelled it before. It hadn't been so rich and powerful last time. Then a smile flickered onto his face and his forehead smoothed out. "Oh yeah, Mom."

Slipping through one last wall, he hovered in the room for a few seconds, staring down at the blurry lumps he figured were his parents. Those two smells _had_ to be his parents. Not only did he know his mom smelled like apples, he was still in his house and there was only one bed with two people in it. Drifting closer, he squinted down at the apple-smelling figure of his mother. "Mom?" he whispered.

Could he get her awake when he was like this? Would she see him? Would she stop and listen long enough for him to explain?

His sizzled fingers reached forwards and slid through the fabric sheet. Warm fizzles of energy tickled up his arm and an unconscious smile appeared on his face at the feeling. "How can I wake you…"

_Thrump… thrump…_

"What's that?" His head turned and he pulled his hand away from his parents, startled by the sudden sound.

_Thrump… thrump…_

It was a cold noise that slammed into him like a soft crash of thunder or a loud heartbeat. His mouth dropped open as he stared in the direction of the noise, his eyes searching the blurry darkness for whatever was making the noise. It felt something like that crazy octopus, or that skeleton-thing from the movie theater. It had to be another ghost – a powerful one.

Deep inside of him, he felt a small snarl build up and cascade out of him, annoyance and anger surging through him and curling his toes. He moved without thought. The comforting smell of his parents dwindled as he flew quickly through the quiet night air towards the feel of the ghost.

He was minutes away from home and nearly to the source of the noise before his mind finally caught up with his instincts and his actions. He drifted to a stop. Blinking, he twirled around in midair, looking through the dark and blurry neighborhood. "Crud," he whispered as one cold fact twisted into his mind. "Which way is home?"

_Thrump…_

A few of the small ghost creatures darted around his vision, shrieking and chattering with the shrieks and noises of thousands of condemned souls. He watched a blood-covered bobcat appear out of nowhere and pounce on a half-eaten rat, swallowing the tiny creature. It screamed, visible waves of energy flaring away from the cat as the rat vanished from view.

"Ew," Danny whispered. He sank through the air until his feet were nearly to the dark green blur that he figured was probably grass. But for all he could tell, it might have been a bush… or even the top of a small tree. All he really knew was that it was green. He crouched down, perfectly balanced in mid-air as he studied the source of the pulsing coldness.

_Thrump…_

It was wandering down what Danny guessed was probably a street, its sightless eyes scanning the surrounding blur of houses. It was male, he decided after a moment, clothed in old-style coveralls and a pill-box hat, looking like it had just fallen off a building. His eyes narrowed dangerously as instincts swirled up inside of him. He needed to get rid of this thing before it got any closer to his home. He wanted to fight, he wanted to destroy, he wanted to…

He shook his head firmly and threw the thoughts out of his mind. "Hey," he called to the ghost as he stood up and drifted towards it, still struggling to suppress a very odd desire to snarl at this… _intruder._ Maybe this thing knew where his home was.

The ghost didn't slow its purposeful drifting up the street.

_THRUMP…_ The rumble of the noise made Danny hesitate, his whole body shivering at the power of this ghost's beat.

Danny moved the last few feet, touching its mangled shoulder softly to get its attention. "Hey!"

"Boxes," the ghost scowled, suddenly twisting towards Danny. The eyes in its smashed head were bright with obsessed energy and the rest of its face was a mess of slices and bruises as it stared at him. "Get away from my _boxes_." The ghost's voice was crusty and twisted with an old and forgotten accent.

A snarl worked its way out of Danny's throat, his fingers stinging from the quick rebuff. "What's your problem?" he snapped. Deep inside of him, something uncurled and stretched, sharp claws of fury and possessiveness digging into his stomach. Energy flared around him and swirled into existence as something nearly tangible, his own energy pulsing around him like a spectral heartbeat. He had no idea why he was so angry all of the sudden, but there was no doubting the simmering rage that was burning in his eyes.

The ghost growled – a low sound that actually pushed Danny backwards a few feet. "Boxes," it hissed. "Boxes are my problem. There are never enough… there are always too many… Stay away… mine…"

"Yeah? You can have the stupid boxes." Danny tried to take a step forwards, his eyes narrowing, but an invisible force stopped him from making any headway. The quiet tendrils of anger flickered and grew as terror flooded into his mind and added to the chaos. He wasn't sure what was going on anymore – every thought of this ghost being a benign creature that would help him get home were tossed out the window. All he knew is that he wanted this ghost gone. He wanted it gone… now.

He reached down inside of himself, felt for that weird sparkling energy that had helped him out in the movie theater, begging for help. The thing that was buried deep inside of his stomach suddenly uncoiled and seemed to chuckle before boiling curls of energy flared to life around him. Danny felt a rush of power slam into him, his face twisting in a menacing grin, human reason and thoughts drowning under the onslaught of ghost emotions.

Crouching low to the ground, his eyes glowing like stars, he growled. Instincts quietly unfolded inside of his head, and he _knew_ what to do. His body moved almost before his brain had fully understood the consequences of his actions. He slid forwards, easily counteracting the pathetic spectral forces of the box obsessed ghost, his hands starting to glow as he collected energy out of the air and focused it.

He reached out with his mind, swirling the energy into a small vortex just above the burn mark on his palm, never stopping to wonder how he was doing any of this. He just _did._ The energy grew and sparked, dripping off his translucent flesh like bits from a welding gun. He could see it in his mind…

Two steps forwards…

Thrust with his hand…

Release the energy…

"_Mine,_" the old ghost snapped darkly before Danny could move, but it cowered backwards away from the energy Danny was collecting. "Mine… mine… my boxes… stay away…"

"Mine," Danny hissed, the echoing screams of the dying that swirled just underneath his voice making his words barely intelligible. "_My_ town, _my_ house, _my_ family." He took another step forwards, glaring at the retreating ghost. He wanted to rip the ghost apart for coming this close to his space. He wanted to destroy… he wanted to _possess_… he wanted to…

Human reason suddenly kicked back into gear, subverting his ghost instincts. Danny shivered and pulled back, most of the energy around him dissipating instantly. He hung in space, his eyes wide as he tried to figure out what had just happened.

"Mine," the box ghost whispered once more before drifting off up the street as quickly as it could.

Danny stared after the departing ghost, the remainder of the power that was flooded around him dying away. He shook his head, letting the strange anger drain out of him, wishing that he could take a deep breath to calm down and help him sort out his mind. That… that… whatever had just happened… it had felt so strange. He licked his chapped lips, glancing around. Never before had he felt so uncontrolled. So wild. So powerful.

He wasn't sure at all if he liked it…

"How am I going to get home now?" he whispered to the quiet world, his voice echoing strangely. Thankfully, the impossible screams that had laced his voice were gone, but the 'normal' distant cries of the small creatures were also gone, leaving Danny feeling like he was floating in a blurry soup of silent nothingness. Glancing down at his hands, he shook his head. This whole mess was impossible.

He hung suspended for a moment, the only thing in the world that felt real, then his nose twitched and itched. The clawed thing inside his stomach chuckled softly, lazily stretched, and Danny instinctively _breathed_.

Smells assaulted his nose, drifted between his fingers, and caressed his cheek as they drifted passed him. His eyes closed as his mind tried to figure out just was he was smelling. He felt like he was standing in a store that was part perfume store, part bakery, and part machine shop… everything was a jumbled mess of things that raced around his head in dizzying chaos. Something seemed to be directing his thoughts. He needed to find the apples... where were the apples…

Then, suddenly, the mangled smells sorted themselves out in his head. His eyes flickered open in surprise as he started picking up on specific scents. When warm apples drifted into his nose, he grinned, turning towards the source of the smell. Right next to the crisp apple smell of his mother was quiet cinnamon warmth of his sister and the tangy metallic scent of his father.

Home was right there.

Danny laughed in relief, listening to his voice echo weirdly on this otherworldly plane. He started to drift over in that direction but he glanced over his shoulder at a whisper of a smell that had danced around him for a split second. _Rainbows_…

All thoughts of going home or trying to undo this 'ghost' form shattered and vanished. He found himself moving in the direction of the hypnotic smell, stopping every few minutes to sniff the air and reorient himself. The stronger it grew, the quicker he flew, his whole body quivering with the desire to find the source of his enchanting smell.

He didn't even hesitate as a large black object appeared in his path. A small part of his mind assumed that he had just flown through a wall and struggled with that thought, but the rest of him didn't care. The smell had to be right here, the source of his intoxicating scent need to be right…

His headlong flight stopped dead and he hovered, drinking in the sight that met his spectral eyes. There was a blurry lump in the middle of the room that was probably a person, but Danny didn't give it a second thought. All around the sleeping lump were ripples in the air, simmering and sparkling like the air over a hot road in the summer, glittering with energy. His eyes were fixed on the ripples as they raced through the dark night air, flowing out from their creator like small waves.

Translucent fingers reached forwards and brushed against one of the waves of energy, his face breaking into a grin of delight as firefly-like motes of light dashed off the ripple and curled around his fingers. Energy fizzled up his arm and into his chest, his whole body beginning to feel the effects of the intense smell of rainbows. Green eyes drifted closed, his mind wandering as energy sizzled through him.

_The rain patters down from the cloud-dappled sky, the sunshine splitting into ethereal beams of light that sparkle against the wet grass. The earthy smells of worms and mud twist with the sharp tang of the ozone from the lightning and coat the area like a light fog. Spinning around in dizzying circles, hands rising into the air in joy, breath stopping in throats as eyes catch sight of the beautiful stain of color against the sky. _

His mind didn't work, his whole being tuned to the feelings that were assaulting him. Thoughts skittered along the surface and cascaded down into an abyss of nothingness. He didn't want to do anything up sit here. Time stood still and zipped forwards, seconds blurred into hours, minutes into heartbeats without any distinction between the past and future. He just wanted to be like this… forever…

When the source of the radiant smell rolled over and moved, Danny – intangible, invisible, and lost in a chasm of nothingness – followed without thought.

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Tucker knocked on the door to Danny's house, shifting uneasily on his feet. Normally he met Sam and Danny at the bus stop, but today he needed to ask his best friend a question… and he had to ask it without Sam being around. There was no way Danny would answer a question about those rainbows if Sam was around. His only hope was that Danny was actually up. Normally the teenager was running towards the bus at the last minute, still eating the breakfast he had stolen off his sister's plate.

"Tucker?" Maddie Fenton's forehead furrowed in surprise. "Good morning."

"Morning," he mumbled, "is Danny up yet?"

"I'll go check. Come on in." She pushed the door open and gestured to the table. "Have a seat."

"Thanks, Mrs. F." Tucker grinned at her, pulling out a chair and stealing a piece of toast to munch on while he waited, quietly going over his questions in his mind.

"Danny?" he heard Mrs. Fenton call. "Danny?"

The red-head drifted back into the kitchen, her eyes sparkling with concern. "I can't find him."

"He's probably at school," Tucker said, his own stomach twisting with worry as he wove together a story in his head. "We were going to get together this morning to work on something and maybe he figured we'd meet there." Under the table, he crossed his fingers that Mrs. Fenton wouldn't catch the small lie.

"Oh," she said softly, a small smile drifting back onto her face. "Have him come home right after school though, okay Tucker? We've got something special planned for supper."

Tucker smiled back, feeling his cheeks tense at the fakeness of the expression. His insides were turning themselves into knots over where Danny could possibly be. "Alright. See you." Slipping out the door and setting off down the sidewalk towards the bus stop, Tucker started creating a list in his mind of all the places his friend could be hiding.

Unfortunately, the list was _really_ long.

--In _real life_, there isn't always a simple fix.

(end chapter 6)


	8. The Best Laid Plans Fall Apart

_*edited 1/2009*_

**Real Life**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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(chapter 7)

In Which the Best Laid Plans Fall Apart

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Sam shivered and slammed the door to the locker a little harder than necessary. Flinching at the noise, she mumbled a soft apology to her locker before stuffing her first period books into her bag as quickly as possible. "Thank you for Fridays," she muttered to herself, threw her pack over her shoulder, and rubbed her hands over her arms. Not for the first time that morning, every hair suddenly stood up on end and a chill washed down her back.

Biting her lip, she struggled to keep from twisting around to stare over her shoulder as she walked towards class. On top of the fact that her stomach was twisting and churning nauseatingly in her belly, all morning she'd been swamped with the feeling that _something_ was staring right at the back of her head. Or, more creepily, she had the distinct impression that something was staring straight _through_ her. Following her… staring… just…

Her head jerked around almost against her will at her own thoughts, her startled eyes scanning the hallway for the unseen pursuer as her heart suddenly beat a little too loudly in her ears. Pressing her backpack firmly against the lockers and folding her arms insecurely across her chest, she studied the bustling students. Shaking her head and closing her eyes for a moment, she tried to shake off the annoying feeling and get her heart back to a normal pace.

"I'm not being followed," she whispered as she hurried down the hall, desperately ignoring a dizzying roll of her stomach. "Samantha Elizabeth Manson… get a grip."

She walked into class and claimed the far back seat in the room, her back inches from the wall. Hopefully she would be able to convince her mind that there was nothing behind her. Nothing at all.

A small, slightly paranoid grin appeared on her face as she waited for her two friends to show up. "I'm just the scary loser… who'd want to follow me? Nobody's following me. Nobody at all." She straightened her shoulders, managing to throw off the eerie feeling for a few moments. Leaning down to open her backpack to get her books, she let her grin grow a little despite the nauseating feeling still curling in her stomach. "I'm being so…"

A cold puff of air drifted across the back of her neck. Sam jerked upright, staring around the classroom with wide eyes as she tried to figure out who had blown on her neck. "Who…?"

Nobody.

Her eyes flickered towards the corners of the classroom as she dug her notebook out of her bag with arms that trembled a lot more than she wished they did. "Excellent," she whispered, dropping the notebook and a pen onto her desk.

As ready for class as she could be, she folded her arms and sank back in her chair. A few shivers and three convulsive glances over her shoulder later (at which there was always nothing but a dingy brick wall), the bell rang. Sam, with one final glance at the two empty desks next to her, felt an overpowering and unwelcome swell of loneliness well upside of her. Despite the knowledge that there were thirty other people in the room, she felt like she was alone in a dark alley, the shadowing shifting over dangerous pursuers. If she was any other girl, she probably would have started to cry.

But she was a Manson. Mansons don't cry.

…at least not in public.

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Tucker attempted to curse vividly under his breath as he raced the last few blocks to school. He had a whole store of excellent words saved up from his hours of online gaming with some very verbose teenagers, but unfortunately he didn't have the breath to use them. Gasping for air as he collapsed against the fence around the school yard, Tucker listened to the bell ring.

"D… damn," he managed to mutter. He had spent a very large portion of his morning scouring the town looking for his best friend and he had completely lost track of time. Mentally, he tried to figure out how many tardies this made for the current school year. Six was a call home… was he at six yet? No, he had four. This would be five.

"Danny… you… owe me…" He pushed himself to his feet and staggered towards the school. "You more than… owe me… I… _own_ you… after this…"

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Through the fog of his mind, Danny knew that something was desperately wrong, but there was nothing he could do about it. His body had been consumed by his ghost instincts and desires, his human sense of logic and reason drowning in waves of unconscious delight. Tingling, impossible ripples of energy and light broke over his mind and sent tingles of joy streaking through his nerves.

He was lost and, on some level, he knew it. A very tiny portion of his soul that still beat and flickered with life screamed and kicked against the overwhelmingly cold senselessness of the dead.

But, in the end, it was no use.

_She's mine… it's mine… stay away… mine…_

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Tucker walked calmly through the door to his first period class, twenty-seven minutes late. He handed the late pass to Mr. Falluca and headed towards the back of the room, studiously avoiding Sam's face. Looking at her would start the inevitable conversation, and the middle of math class was _not_ the time try to talk to Sam about where Danny might possibly be this morning.

He really wasn't looking forward to telling her anyways. For the 'not-lovebirds' of the school, she could be really vindictively protective when it came to Danny. At least he'd have the next twenty minutes to come up with a good way of telling her Danny had disappeared.

He sank into his seat and dropped his heavy bag onto the ground before fishing out his notebook. "It's Friday, so we're going to have our weekly _quiz_," Mr. Falluca droned sourly, his voice never varying from its normal 'lecture' monotone. He continued without much of a pause for breath, "You have about ten minutes to study before I hand it out, yes you may work in partners to study, no you may not use notes _or _partners on the quiz – although you'll ask me again anyways when I hand it out so I don't know why I'm bothering to waste my breath – and no, Ms. Sanchez, you may _not_ use fluorescent pink gel pens this time."

Tucker groaned, dropped his head onto his folded arms, and glanced at his 'partner'. "Excellent," he muttered, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Those twenty minutes had just gone up in smoke. He'd be lucky if he got twenty _seconds_ to come up with a reasonable sounding explanation of where Danny was.

"Excellent," Sam repeated, her eyes glittering strangely as she scooted her desk over towards him, accompanied by a small chill of air. "Where were _you_ and where _is_ he?"

"Not even going to attempt math, huh?" Dropping his eyes to his paper and pretending to be engrossed in the swimming numbers as the math teacher walked down the aisle, he whispered, "Danny's missing."

"Missing?" Sam's voice was harsh. She shivered slightly and crossed her arms, swallowing heavily before continuing. "Missing as in what?"

"As in _missing_: gone, vanished, not to be found, absent, misplaced, omitted… take your pick." Tucker ground his teeth together a little and sighed. "I went to his house this morning and he's not there. Nobody's seen him since last night."

"What did Mrs. Fenton say?"

"I told her that Danny was probably at school." Tucker looked at the Goth out of the corner of his eye, studying her for the first time since he walked in. Her hair seemed extra frizzy today, her normally impeccable make-up smudged, her pale face nearly white under her black hair, her normally calm exterior cracking as her foot tapped in a strange counterpoint to the annoying clicking of her pen against the desktop. She didn't look well at all. "Are you okay, Sam?"

"Yes," she answered quickly. "That's why you were late? You were looking for him?"

Tucker accepted the redirection without a comment. If she didn't want to talk about her personal stuff, he wasn't going to push her… yet. Lunch period might be a different matter. "He's not at the park, down by the river, on the bridge, _under_ the bridge, in the garbage cans next to Mr. Pickery's Candy Store, _or_ at the Nasty Burger." He licked his lips, thinking. "The only thing I got all morning was a vague rumor that Dash's gang roughed him up a little yesterday."

"Again?" Sam breathed.

Tucker nodded, trying to ignore the concerned fury that sparkled in her eyes at the thought of Dash picking on one of her friends. "I've looked everywhere humanly possible."

"_Humanly_," Sam said slowly, a small grin growing on her pale face. "What if he's not somewhere a _human_ can find him?"

"You mean if he's a ghost?" Tucker sat up a little in his chair. "I didn't even think…" His forehead wrinkled as a thought slammed into his mind like a jetliner. "How are we going to find something we can't_ see?_ If you're more than a few feet away from him when he's a ghost, he's almost completely invisible."

Sam shrugged, closing her eyes for a second, then jerked her head around to stare over her shoulder for a moment. When her fingers took up their tap-dancing against her pencil again, she said, "Maybe we can find someone who can see ghosts."

"Yeah?" Tucker worriedly watched his friend for a second. Something was very wrong with her – not only did she not look well, but her latest suggestion was ludicrous. Danny was usually the person who came up with the impossible answers… Sam's usually made sense. "And where, pray tell, are we going to find someone who can see _invisible_ ghosts?"

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_Stay away… it's mine… it's my human… it's my… my… she?... my Sam? _

_Sam's not mine… she's Sam… Sam… help me… Sam… she's… _

_She's… MINE! STAY AWAY! _

Ghost instincts flared, an impossibly bright flash of light completely obliterating a wayward spectral snake and disintegrating one of the legs and the tail of a ghost rat. Danny moved a little closer, feeling the dancing bliss of the rainbows thrumming through him, his human thoughts curling back down into the shadows of his mind.

_Mine… it's mine. _

_Mine forever._

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"Mr. Foley, would you pass these quizzes out please?"

Tucker started, jerking out of his silent contemplation of his friend. He looked up at the teacher, closed the notebook he hadn't even started to study from, and nodded. "Find someone who can see ghosts," he muttered under his breath as he walked to the front of the room to take the stack of papers out of the teacher's hand. "Now there's the solution of the century – totally feasible."

He dropped the papers on the desks as he made his way around the class, his mind not engaged in the task. His thoughts were racing, trying to figure out where else Danny could be hiding. He had covered all the most logical places that morning – could it really be possible that Danny had just run away? He might not even be in Amity Park anymore.

Setting a quiz down on Dash's desk, Tucker hesitated. What if Danny really _had_ run away? Should they tell the police something? At the very least, they should tell the Fentons.

"Mr. Foley."

The teacher's voice startled him out of his reverie and, with a roll of his eyes, Tucker dropped the last few papers onto the desks. Passing Valerie on the way back to his own seat, Tucker paused, his eyes catching sight of the picture she'd been doodling on her notes. "Hey, can I see that?" he asked, his voice catching in his throat.

The popular girl arched a dark eyebrow, her expression dubious, but she twisted her paper and moved her hand. The strangest looking animals seemed to swim or fly around the borders of her notes, snarling and clawing and glaring at each other. Her latest doodle, positioned just under yesterday's notes, was the one that had caught his interest. It was a picture of a frazzled-looking Sam and a boy… Sam sitting in her desk and a scarily familiar teenager dressed in black rags sitting cross-legged in midair right beside her, staring at her.

"Where…" he began, but was interrupted.

"Mr. Foley and Ms. Grey, please put away your notes and begin your quiz."

Valerie shot him a strange look before tucking the paper back into her notebook and stuffing it into her bag. Tucker continued to stare down at the now empty desk, his mind blank as it tried to figure out what was going on, unable to tear his eyes away from the place where the picture had been.

"_Mr. Foley_."

Grinding his teeth together, Tucker walked back towards his desk, his eyes flickering from Sam's puzzled face to the spot in the air next to her. His brain was still eerily quiet as it contemplated the meaning of what he had seen on Valerie's paper. A million conclusions were tangling themselves together in his brain, cascading into something that made a horrible amount of sense.

He dropped heavily into his seat and stared down at the paper on his desk as a sort of dazed comprehension rang through him, his thoughts clamoring in his head for attention. Danny hadn't run away – he was at school. He was following Sam around… following her for the rainbows and probably unable to snap himself out of it. Valerie could see him in ghost mode; more than likely she could see all sorts of ghosts. All those things on her paper must have been other ghosts that were around the school. Dozens of ghosts, and Danny was just another one.

Tucker took a shaky breath, closing his eyes and feeling a tiny flare of anger at the knowledge that Danny had kept the fact that there were other ghosts in Amity Park to himself. The few things he had figured out about Danny and ghosts lead to millions of questions that he wanted to ask. His mind curled and churned around various theories and ideas for a moment before he shook his head. "He's here…" he breathed, "but how can we get to him?"

Slipping down a little and completely ignoring the fact that he was supposed to be taking a math quiz, Tucker scrambled through his thoughts, searching desperately for an answer.

He couldn't help the grin that spread on his face a few seconds later. "Perfect."

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Sam scratched absently on her paper, trying to ignore the growing ache in her stomach. It felt like someone was taking little bits of her insides and pulling them out through her stomach. All morning, the dizzying, nauseating sensation had been growing and ever since she had gotten to school she'd been wondering how long she'd be able to last.

Tucker whispered, "Perfect," and she glanced over at him. He had a very self-satisfied smirk on his face.

Suddenly an especially queasy feeling swept through her and she dropped her pencil onto her desk, swallowing heavily. "May I be excused?" she asked quietly, "I need to go to the nurse."

"Your quiz will be graded as-is," the teacher droned from his desk without looking up.

Sam quietly grabbed her stuff and headed for the door, dropping her half-finished quiz on the teacher's desk. Her paper hadn't even settled onto the desk before Tucker was behind her, setting his completely blank quiz on top of hers with a smile. "I'm going to walk her."

Mr. Falluca blinked sleepily at him once before nodding and returning to correcting their homework.

"What's wrong?" Tucker asked, taking in her pale face and the slight tremble in her arms.

"I haven't been feeling good all morning," she confessed softly, looking down at the ground. She hated admitting that there was some kind of weakness to her – even to her two best friends.

"Maybe you shouldn't have come to school," Tucker said with a grin as he snatched the backpack off her back and slung it over his own shoulder.

"But Danny…" Sam shot him a look, blinking when a startled expression flickered across his face. "What?"

He slowed his walk, coming to a complete stop in the deserted hallway. "You haven't been feeling good all morning?" he repeated quietly.

Sam nodded. "I've been feeling weird all day."

Tucker looked at her, concern and anger growing in his expression. "We need to make a pit-stop at my locker before go to the nurse," he said slowly as he turned and headed down a different hallway.

"Your locker?" Despite the churning feeling of her stomach, she followed her friend. "What's in your locker?"

"My calculator."

Hesitating for a second, she shook her head. "We just came from math; why don't you have it?" She tipped her head to the side. "And why do you need it _now?_"

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_It's mine… mine. _

Danny followed the sparkling rainbow scent thrown off by his best friend with mindless ferocity. Green eyes glowing impossibly with all the energy he had collected, he reached forwards with his hand. Uncaring about the fact that the blurry object before him was a human being, he slipped his hand into the shape. Energy crackled and cascaded delightfully up his arm as he searched for the very source of the smell.

_Stay away, it's mine._

He chased away an errant little rat with a flash of energy and a snarl, ignoring its shriek of pain, and focused on nothing but finding where the powerful scent was coming from. His mind had no room for anything but that. He wanted – _needed_ – to find it, to claim it, to possess it.

Fingers closed around something inside of the shape, Danny's spectral mind shattering into pieces as a surge of impossibly heavenly energy swirled through him. When the shape before him collapsed to the ground, Danny didn't give it a second thought. It was just a _thing_ to him.

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Tucker glanced back over his shoulder when he heard Sam gasp, unable to move quickly enough to catch her as she dropped to the floor. "Sam!"

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Split-seconds flickered into hours in Danny's mind as he reveled in the power that thrummed through him, burying the very last bit of resistance his human soul was trying to put up. The smile that appeared on his face was chilling as his spectral instincts completely subverted his human side, his teeth sharpening to points and his hair billowing around his head, sparkling and waving like flames. His eyes glittered like frozen emeralds as he clutched his still glowing and now-slightly-clawed hand possessively to his chest. Howling screams of the damned whispered in his quiet laughter and echoed in his ears.

_Br-zap! _

He screamed as pain suddenly flooded through him, jerking away from the source of the pain. Unfortunately for him, it also meant getting farther away from the rainbows. He snarled, energy flaring around him as he stalked back towards the lump that was sending off the rainbows and searched for what could have caused it. Nothing important jumped to his eyes. There were just two of the unimportant objects; one smelling of rainbows and the other smelling of an old library.

_Br-zap! _

The pain came again, searing into him. He shrieked, instinctively throwing energy away from him in an attempt to ward off the ghost that was attacking. But no ghosts were attacking him. He was alone. Where was the pain coming from?

_Br-zap! _

A third blast jolted into him and Danny felt his ghost side slip deeper into his mind, struggling to find a place to hide from the piercing agony. His human thoughts slammed into his head, swirling around in his mind just long enough for him to comprehend what was going on.

_Sam and Tucker. He was feeding off of Sam again. _

Then it felt like a switch was thrown in his head. Energy flickered and coursed around him, cascading over his form as his human body was reformed out of the ethereal ectoplasmic energy his ghost body was made out of. He collapsed to the ground against the lockers, trembling from the temperature of his own body and pale as his heart gave a half-hearted twitch and started pumping blood through his veins. His breath rasped loudly in his lungs and he couldn't do much but sit there with his eyes closed and wait for his body to get used to working again.

Finally, he opened his eyes. Sam was lying on the ground in a school hallway, Tucker leaning over her and staring in disbelief in Danny's direction. Danny felt his heart jump into his throat at how still Sam was. "Sam!"

He struggled to his feet, but Tucker surged to his feet and held the calculator defensively in front of himself. "Stay back," he said, his eyes wild with fear and adrenaline.

"Sam," Danny repeated, feeling himself relax a little when she groaned and moved, "is she okay?"

"Damn it!" Tucker hissed, dropping his calculator to the ground and obviously struggling to keep from screaming at his best friend since they were at school, "you were _feeding_ off of her! You could have _killed her._"

Sam gasped and her eyes widened, glancing from one boy to the other.

Danny hesitated, his nerves jangling, and he shifted nervously on his bare feet. He slipped closer to them, looking Sam straight in the eyes for a heartbeat. He could smell her, even in human mode, the delicious scent of rainbows still dancing in the air around her. "Yes," he confirmed softly. The impossibly hurt look in her eyes cut deep into him.

Tucker glared at him, anger and fury growing around him and tainting the musty smell of ancient libraries that hung in the air. "Enough with the lies and the half-truths and the secrets. You _knew _that this was could happen and didn't tell us! You could have seriously _hurt_ her!"

"I…" Danny looked away from them, unwilling to let them see the tears that were sparkling in his eyes. He didn't _want_ to hurt his friends. He was so confused… he wasn't sure what to do anymore. Not telling them things was supposed to _help_.

"I don't even want to hear it," Tucker snapped. "This isn't a cruddy _game_; I _told you that._ I want to help but you're _dangerous_! I'm not going to let you hurt someone – especially not someone I think of like family!"

Danny winced, but nodded. He understood. "I couldn't help it," he breathed.

"It shouldn't make a difference! This is _Sam!_"

"I know!" Danny snarled softly, his eyes flashing green as his anger flared, the dangerously heady scent of Sam flooding heavily into him and sending his emotions haywire. "I'm _trying_, can't you see that? And you're not _helping_, Mr. 'I'm your friend and then I'm not because it's scary and then I will be and now I won't again'. If you don't want to be my friend, if you don't want to help, then _stay away_ from me!"

Tucker leaned over Sam, his eyes glinting, unwilling to back down. "Says Mr. Rollercoaster. You've been slipping back and forth between _wanting_ us as friends and pushing us away for the past three days! _Pick one!_ You go from happy to sad to frightening to smiling in a split second! We never know what's coming from you – and you hardly ever even _look_ at us anymore!"

"Tucker," Sam said softly, struggling to sit up.

"_I can't help it_," Danny shot back, "what's your excuse?"

"Danny," Sam touched his shoulder.

Tucker seethed. "You haven't told us anything! We want to _help_ but we _can't_ because you're the freaking lock box of secrets!"

"Tucker Foley and Daniel Fenton," Sam growled, "if you don't stop the pointless arguing _right now_, I will banish both of you to the gates of Hell." Both of them blinked down at her. "Quit acting all macho just because you're scared and _let me sit up!_"

A nurse appeared at the end of the hallway, scurrying towards the trio of friends as the two boys backed away and let Sam up sit the rest of the way. Someone must have seen Sam collapse and called the nurse. Sam took a deep breath. "Now, you two _make up_ before the end of the day or I swear…" she broke off. "We need to help each other, not scream and yell," she shot Tucker a look, "or run away," she added with a glare towards Danny. "We are sitting down after school and figuring this out."

Silence flooded the hallway as the nurse walked up to them and knelt down by Sam's side. Danny fidgeted with the hem of his pajama shirt while the nurse asked Sam a few questions and then helped her to stand up. As the two of them walked off towards the nurse's station, the two boys were left glaring at each other. "The dungeon?" Danny finally said, gesturing with his head towards the stairs that led down into the little-used basement storeroom.

"So you can feed off of _me_ too?" Tucker grumbled darkly,

Danny was quiet. "So we can _talk_." He met Tucker's eyes for a moment. He didn't want to lose Tucker's friendship – not after everything they'd been through. "You're right. I haven't told you lots of things because I thought it would help. But I was wrong."

It took a few seconds, but a bit more of the tension dripped out of Tucker's shoulders. "You're doing it again," he said.

"What?" Danny knelt down and picked up Sam's backpack and Tucker's calculator, giving it a curious glance.

"Rollercoastering. You went from furious to friendly at the drop of a hat." He walked over and picked his calculator out of Danny's hands, carefully putting it in the side pocket of his cargo jeans. "I'm still fuming over what you did. This sudden switch thing you do just doesn't seem… real. People just don't flip their emotions like that."

"_Humans_ don't," Danny breathed, more to himself than to Tucker. This was the first time he realized that his reactions and emotions the past few days hadn't been perfectly normal. Fortunately or unfortunately, now that it was pointed out, Danny knew precisely what the culprit was: his ghost side – its wild emotions and feral instincts – were all too close to the surface.

Tucker was staring at him with an odd look on his face. "Humans?" he asked softly, mouthing wordlessly when Danny just nodded. He blinked a few times. "Talking sounds like a good idea."

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"So talk," Tucker said, closing the door and flipping on the light switch, the harsh fluorescents lighting up the nearly empty room.

Danny flicked a glance in his direction and carefully set Sam's backpack aside. "I don't even know where to start, Tuck," he whispered. "That's one of the reasons I never told you guys. It's…"

"Start with last night." Tucker knew the tone of his voice was callous and he watched the other boy flinch at the vehemence in his voice. But there was no helping it – Danny could have seriously hurt Sam. Part of it, Tucker knew, was anger at Danny for keeping so many secrets from him. They were brothers on some level and the idea that Danny had kept so many things to himself hurt. Tucker felt like he was drowning in a sea of confusion and impossibilities.

Little did he know that his best friend was having the same problem.

"I woke up, really cold," Danny said, dropping to the ground with a sigh. "But it wasn't _really_ cold – it was like eighty degrees or something – but I felt like I was freezing. I didn't have much of a choice when I ended up in ghost mode. I couldn't figure out how to get back." Danny took a breath, focusing on his fingers. "You don't know what it's like, Tucker, to be like that. It's not…" He broke off. "Everything is so _strange_."

"Why were you following Sam around?" Tucker asked impatiently.

"There was this _noise_ when I was wandering around my house like that. It wasn't really a noise; it was like that low sound that really loud subwoofers make where you don't hear it in your ears as much as feel it with your whole body." He shot a glance up at Tucker to make sure he understood. "It was a ghost doing it. I don't even remember what happened after I heard it. I ended up out in the street somehow, staring down a guy that looked like he fell off a building." Danny chuckled.

Tucker rolled his eyes. "What's funny about a guy falling off a building?"

Danny shrugged, "I don't know. It was just…" He shook his head. "Never mind. I hated how close the ghost was to my house, I remember that." His eyes closed, his mind obviously drifting back to last night. "I chased it away. I'm not sure how, but I did. And then I was going to go home – I could smell home – but I got Sam instead." Blue eyes opened. "And, really, the next thing I remember is being in the hallway."

"How? How is that possible?" Tucker, despite his righteous fury at his best friend for endangering the girl he thought of like a sister and his better senses telling him to race for the hills, sank to his heels next to Danny.

"It's a ghost thing, I think," Danny answered, his eyes distant and dead for a heartbeat before he blinked and life sparkled back into them. "Ghosts, from what I can tell, are like animals. They're just all instincts and reactions and… stuff."

Tucker nodded slowly, processing that information. "What did you mean when you said you could smell home?"

"Ghosts can't see, Tucker." He looked up at the ceiling, trying to form his thoughts into words. "Well, they can see other ghosts just fine. But humans – and everything else that's not dead – it's all just blurry nothing." He bit his lip. "We can't really hear either," he added after a moment, unaware that he had stopped talking about 'ghosts' and started talking about 'us', "it's hard to hear humans. All we can do is smell them."

Tucker didn't miss the point where Danny started to include himself with the ghosts. He shuddered slightly. "Smell?"

"It's not really smelling; it's something totally different." Danny leaned forwards, his eyes glittering as he tried to explain. "Tucker, it's like nothing you've ever felt. It's like a smell, only it's got tastes and sensations and something kind of like _memories_ all rolled into it. You can see it floating off of people like… like ripples of heat over a tar road in the summer. It's energizing, Tucker."

"It's food," Tucker said flatly.

After a second, Danny nodded. "Probably. And everybody is different. I can tell who people are by what they smell like."

"And Sam smells like rainbows."

Danny's eyes faded out again at the thought. "Dancing in the rain, smiling up at the rainbow on a warm summer's day with the sun shining through the raindrops…"

Tucker really wanted to keep his anger going towards Danny. Secrets, lies, half-truths, hurting others… but he felt his fury slowly draining away. Deep down inside of him, he felt for his best friend and what he was going through. To have to be dealing with all of this on his own – it must be just as terrifying and confusing as what he was going through.

"I didn't mean it, Tucker," Danny whispered, tears springing into his eyes as his emotions rocketed once more. "There are hundreds of ghosts in Amity Park all the time and they don't hurt anybody. I didn't know that I was hurting her – it just felt so good and I really didn't even know I was doing it. And it's so hard to _think_. I saw her collapse. I _saw it_… and I didn't think anything of it. She wasn't even a person in my head anymore. She was just a thing – just food."

With a mental groan, Tucker felt the last of his defenses crumble and his anger melt away. His friend couldn't control what he was doing and he needed help. _His_ help, more than likely. "Danny…"

"I'm sorry." Danny looked up, stared him straight in the eyes and kept eye contact for a long moment before letting his eyes drop back to his fingers. "I'm sorry for keeping things from you guys. I just wanted to do what I thought was best at the time."

Tucker sighed. "It makes sense, somewhat. I had figured some of that out already." He shot Danny a hard look. "But that does _not_ let you off the hook. You really could have hurt Sam – and I can't just forget that."

Silence fell between them as the bell rang to let the students out of their first period classes. "Now what?" Danny asked.

"This is so much bigger than the three of us can handle," Tucker said after a long moment. "I _want_ to be your friend and I'm going to try my hardest – but I'm not sure what's going to happen. I don't understand so much of what's going on." He shook his head. "And talking isn't always just going to fix it."

"I hate this," Danny said softly. "I hate this whole messed-up, impossible situation. I hate the fact that I hurt Sam, and that I hurt you. These have been three of the worst and most confusing days of my life. I just have no idea what to do next."

"This is what we're going to do." Tucker stood up, taking a deep breath and mentally accepting Danny's apology. "We sit down and we talk about it. We answer everybody's questions and we throw everything onto the table. No secrets, no nothing. We make a deal that if we can't figure it out, _tonight_, all three of us sit down with someone and _make_ them believe us."

"Tonight," Danny repeated, a small smile on his face. "It's a deal."

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Danny, after procuring his gym shoes and an old pair of gym pants from his locker, made it to second hour about ten minutes late. He slunk towards his seat in the back of the biology classroom and sweated out the period, figuring everybody could tell that he was wearing a pajama shirt and that he hadn't brushed his teeth that morning. To add to his nerves, he couldn't keep anything in his hands for more than a minute before his fingers drifted into intangibility and sent assorted pencils, pens, and biology beakers crashing to the floor. It was officially the worst day he'd had so far in controlling these… ghost powers.

When the bell signally the end of second hour finally rang, Danny practically ran out of the room. Two lefts, a right, and straight down the hallway found Danny right outside of the nurse's station, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. How was he _possibly_ going to apologize to Sam for what had happened? Tucker, he knew, would accept his apologies until the fourth horseman of the apocalypse showed up at their front door – they had been best friends forever and forgiving each other for being stupid was a natural part of life.

Sam was a totally different matter. For one, she was a girl. For two, she held grudges. And held them _forever_. She still hadn't forgiven Ricky Marsh for throwing up in her lunchbox and that had happened seven years ago.

What was he going to say? He was feeding off of her, completely addicted to her, and that she smelled like rainbows?

He groaned, his shins already beginning to hurt where fiercely gothic teenager was going to kick him for saying any of that. Maybe he could say…

"Oh!" Danny jerked himself out of his reverie at the noise, blinking at the nurse that had just opened the door. She smiled at him. "You're the boy that was with the girl who fainted."

Danny nodded. "Can I talk to her?"

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," she said, her smile fading slightly, "she went home."

"Oh. Thanks."

"No problem." The nurse brushed past him and headed up the hall, leaving Danny to stand at stare at the door.

"That solves that problem," he muttered to himself before heading to his third period. Now he had the whole rest of the day to figure out what to say.

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Danny decided to skip lunch in favor of hiding in the library. It wasn't that he was _avoiding_ Tucker, per say, but he felt that giving the other boy some room for right at the moment might be a good idea. He ended up skipping gym for a very similar reason. Well, that and the fact that he had somehow turned himself invisible during fifth period and couldn't figure out how to get out of it. The next time he saw even a glimpse of the techno-geek was after the final bell rang.

"Sam went home," Tucker said levelly, holding his backpack with one hand and waiting for Danny to finish piling his stuff into his locker.

"I know," Danny said, wondering if Tucker would grill him for skipping lunch and gym, "I heard her mom came to get her."

"Danny," Tucker started.

"Wait until we get to my house to start the third degree, okay?" Danny asked. "I promise – no secrets, no keeping anything from you guys – but wait until we get home."

Tucker let a small smile onto his face. "I was going to apologize for earlier. I know you did but I never actually got around to it. You can't help it and I'm sorry I overreacted. I was scared."

Danny sighed. "We're going to be apologizing a lot, you realize."

"Yup. These next few weeks would make a perfect 'angst' story on the internet somewhere. It's going to be a miracle if our friendship survives all of this." Tucker raised an eyebrow over the rim of his glasses with a small smile. "After this is all over, we'll have to be friends for all of eternity though."

"We'll make it." Danny grinned and slammed his locker shut. "We're the loser trio of the school. If we fall apart who will the rest of the student body torture and pick on all day? Besides, we'll always have blackmail."

Tucker nodded. "We'll get this figured out, Danny."

"Yup." Danny headed towards the door, falling into step with his friend. "Sam had to have snuck away from her family by this point. Wonder where she'll ambush us on the way out."

"Five bucks says she gets us before we leave the school grounds."

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She was, in fact, sitting on the front steps of the Fenton household when the two of the walked up. She brushed off her skirt as she stood up, fixing the two of them with a sharp glare. "Did the two of you make up?"

"For now," Tucker answered.

She nodded. "You," she commanded to Danny, "have some serious explaining to do. You were _feeding off of me?_"

Danny nodded slowly. "I think so, yes, but I'm sorry…"

"We're going to sit down," Tucker jumped in before Sam could say anything else, "and we're going to answer everybody's questions and there's going to be _no more secrets_. And, if we can't figure something out tonight, we're going to talk to the Fentons."

Sam blinked, her tone surprised. "That… actually… sounds like a good plan, Tucker."

Danny stepped past her, steadfastly ignoring the rainbows that hung in the air around her as he opened the door to let his friends in. He was just a few feet up the stairs leading to his room when his suddenly froze.

"_Daniel Fenton!_" Danny leaned over the railing and gazed down at his mother. She had her hands on her hips and an annoyed look on her face. "Are you or are you _not_ grounded?"

It took a few blinks for Danny to process that. "Aw… man!" he groaned, "I forgot."

"Then you go running off this morning without saying a thing," she continued, "and I'm left sitting at home wondering if you're okay and where you went to." She sent Sam and Tucker a small smile. "Sorry you two, but he's got a 'no visitors' grounding for right now."

The three friends stared at her in disbelief as their carefully laid plans cascaded down around them. "But Mom," Danny pleaded, "it's really important!"

"It can wait for Monday." Maddie crossed her arms. "Out, you two. He'll see you Monday."

Sam met his eyes, her amethyst eyes sparkling. "You can last until Monday. We'll talk then."

"But…" Danny twisted his gaze from Sam to his parents. "But…" He wasn't sure at _all_ if he'd be able to make it until Monday. He'd spent three days not telling his friends things and keeping to himself, and now all he wanted to do was to talk to them and have them understand just what he was going through.

"Monday," Sam promised, leading Tucker back out the door and shutting it gently behind them. Danny was silent as he stared at the closed door before he moaned and dropped down onto a step.

His mother sighed. She walked around to the bottom of the stairs and looked up at him with an apologetic look on her face. "Danny," she said quietly, "I know that we don't punish you very often and it's hard on you, but I can't stand it when people lie to me."

"I didn't…" Danny protested.

"Don't," his mother cut him off. "I don't want to hear some impossible story about being a ghost! You're _not a ghost._ I want to hear the _truth_, Danny – that's all."

He closed his eyes, the simple pain in his mother's soft words cutting into him. The horrible truth was that what she _wanted _to hear was lies. Finally, he shook his head.

"When you're ready to talk, then," she said softly.

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"You _what?_"

"Farloyrn geyn," the oldest of the vultures rasped, ducking his half-eaten head when the man's eyes flared an impossible red.

"How could you _lose_ a child of that potential! He lights up the spectral realm like a freaking nuclear _bomb_." The man's fingers clenched into fists, his whole body shaking with tension. Deep inside, his own spectral energy responded to his raging emotions by uncurling and flooding through his veins, flaring coldly with every beat of his heart.

The three vultures huddled closer together, their moldy and transparent wings brushing against each other with unearthly sounds. "Badoyeren," one of them hissed.

With a barely contained scream, scarlet waves of supernatural power flooded out of the man, sending the vultures scurrying through a wall and out into the evening sky. "Sorry isn't good enough," he snarled, staring at the blurry walls of his hotel room, only belatedly thinking to check his emotions. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose. "Stupid vultures."

The world finally came back into focus and he pushed a hand through his hair, dropping into a chair. Prematurely white, his hair was often pulled back into a loose ponytail at the nape of his neck, but for now it was dangling down around his shoulders. His human side sometimes wanted to cut it into something a little more business-like, but hair was so darned _useful_ in the spectral realm…

Suddenly, strangely, his snarling expression vanished as a worried smile appeared on his face and his dead, flashing red eyes switched to sparkling (and very much alive) blue-green. In a crazy instant, the very dangerous-looking man was gone – replaced by someone who looked almost _friendly. _The man pulled his hair back and fastened it behind him. "One more day," the more sociable version of the man said, his voice holding a completely different tone than the powerful and angry one he had used only moments before. He stretched his arms over his head. "One more day and Axion Labs will be officially mine."

"One more day…" He bit his lip, thinking over his schedule for tomorrow. "Hopefully we can fly back to Wisconsin tomorrow after dinner." His small smile grew as stood up and took a carefully sealed back out of his suitcase. Inside the small bag were dozens of small cubes of cheese. "Tomorrow this will be all over and everything can go back to normal," he whispered.

His eyes flickered red for a split second, wiping his face of his smile and replacing it with a fierce grimace. "And the boy will be mine," he snarled.

With a sigh, the grimace faded and the man rubbed at his temples with one hand. "Stupid… I hate ghosts," he breathed, "and it's gotten too powerful again. I _don't_ want the boy…" He unzipped the plastic bag and winced at the smell that almost instantly filled the room. Inside of him, his ghost side recoiled even more, curling in on itself and retreating to a small corner of his mind. His fingers visibly shook as he reached into the bag and picked up a small cube of cheese.

Thousands of sharp needles suddenly jabbed into his fingertips and the man's twenty years of practice came into play as he fiercely clamped down on the almost overpowering desire to turn intangible. His trembling arm brought the piece of cheese up towards his face, the smell flooding through him despite the fact that he was holding his breath. Going against the screaming thoughts in his mind and the sharp pain that was shrieking in his arm, the man closed his eyes and placed the cheese in his mouth. He swallowed.

The effects were instantaneous. The man felt his ghost side vanish from his mind, the pain of eating the noxious substance suddenly subsiding to a distant ache, the smell still cascading out of the zip-locked bag becoming something he could handle. Straightening his suit, the man grinned despite his pale face and his shaky legs.

"I am Vlad _Masters_," he said simply, "not a ghost. Not _Plasmius_." Placing the bag back into his suitcase, he tried to figure out how long the cheese would last. If his ghost side returned, he wasn't sure he would be able to fight off this growing obsession about that boy again. He didn't _want_ the boy.

"Stupid ghosts." He closed his eyes and flopped onto his bed in a manner completely not fit for a thirty-nine-year-old multi-millionaire. "I can't wait to go home."

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Danny slumped down to dinner, his mind busily trying to figure out what he was going to tell Sam and Tucker on Monday. About halfway down the stairs, he hesitated, his nose wrinkling at a horrifying smell that was rolling through the lower portion of the house. His stomach clenched and he felt a strange desire to turn and run… from a smell. Shaking it off, he slipped quietly down the rest of the stairs and into the kitchen.

He hesitated just inside the kitchen as he realized the smell was coming from this specific room. "Danny, come sit down," his mother said, bustling around the kitchen collecting a few last-minute things. The large dish of macaroni casserole was still sitting on the stove and his father was nowhere to be seen. "I know you're going to complain," she continued, "but since you're grounded you've lost the ability make this decision."

Jazz shot him a startled look, mouthing 'you're grounded?' once before her face dissolved into confusion. She leaned in closer. "Are you okay?" she whispered.

Nodding slightly just before his mother plopped the casserole onto the table, Danny visibly recoiled away from the smell that was boiling off of the dish. Both Jazz and Maddie blinked at him for a few seconds as he pressed into the back of his chair and struggled to keep from running out of the room. The smell wasn't really making him sick, but it felt like it was driving needles into the deepest parts of his being. The scent was nearly painful.

"Tomorrow," Maddie announced after a moment, still studying her trembling son, "we're going ghost hunting."

--In _real life_, the best laid plans fall apart.

(end of chapter 7)

_(Phonetic) Yiddish Dictionary - English  
--_ _Farloyrn geyn - to be lost  
-- Badoyeren - sorry (apologies_)


	9. A Little Rain Must Fall

_*edited 1/2009*_

**Real Life  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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Chapter 8

In Which a Little Rain Must Fall

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"We're doing what?" Danny asked quietly, dragging his eyes away from the torturous-smelling dinner his mother had created.

His mother smiled faintly, still studying him carefully. "The Grisbee's have agreed to let us check out their old cabin on Lake Eerie. There have been some weird things going on and some reports of cold spots. Jack and I were going to go by ourselves tomorrow, but since you're grounded you can come with and help."

"Ghost hunting," Danny repeated as his stomach dropped, "wonderful."

He blinked when his mother answered by stepping closer and taking his head in her hands. Her forehead wrinkled as she quietly touched his nose and ran her fingers over his forehead. From this close, he could just catch a whiff of warm apples hanging in the air around her, tinged with confused surprise.

"What?"

"I thought for sure…" his mother trailed off. Then she shook her head and smiled. "You must not have been as hurt yesterday as I thought."

Danny raised an eyebrow as he tried to figure out what she was talking about. "Oh," he said simply as the memory of Dash slamming his fist into Danny's face swirled up in his mind. He smiled vaguely at her, but when his mother turned away his smile faded and he reached up to feel his nose. No pain.

Jazz leaned forward to dish some of the cheesy casserole onto her plate with an annoyed sigh, causing the agonizing scent to sweep over Danny and effectively throwing thoughts about his miraculous recovery out of his head. "I'm not waiting for Dad," she said.

"He's still down in the lab, putting the finish touches on the new Gauss meter we're going to test tomorrow." Maddie sank into her own seat and plopped some of the casserole onto her own plate. Long strands of melted cheese strung from her plate to the casserole dish and Danny struggled to repress the desire to run out of the room. "You know how much he likes to _personalize_ his equipment."

"The silly logo he's designed," Jazz muttered, "yeah, we know." She suddenly looked up, her eyes wide with fear. "Speaking of… you're not going to seriously let him hang that… _thing_ up outside are you?"

"Thing? What thing?" Danny glanced from his sister to his mom, curling his fingers around the seat of his chair and wondering why the two of them seemed to be willing to eat such a horrible smelling meal. Couldn't they smell it? Nothing that smelled like that could possibly be good to eat. Jazz was such a picky eater… why wasn't she saying anything?

"_Fentonworks _is now official," Jazz informed him darkly, digging into the portion of her casserole, "Dad ordered a giant _neon_ sign off eBay to hang on our flagpole rather than the country-approved flag, informing the entire population of Amity Park just how weird this family is."

Danny watched in entranced disbelief as his sister brought a large bite of the casserole to her lips. The smell was churning his stomach. "Jazz…" he trailed off, biting back his warning as she popped the forkful into her mouth.

"Mom! This is excellent!" she said with a grin. "And it's not glowing or even vaguely radioactive."

"Frozen family dinners do come in handy sometimes, dear," his mother answered, chewing on her own bite.

Danny bit his lip, glancing from his family back to his plate. He was hungry, to be completely truthful, and perhaps it tasted a lot better than it smelled. With one last shiver, he tried to ignore the prickling needle-like pain as he reached for the spatula and scooped a small glob onto his plate.

The smell almost sent him running.

_Almost_.

Ignoring the quiet chatter of his sister and mother talking about how their oh-so-wonderful Fridays had gone and various plans to make sure the new _Fentonworks_ sign never got hung, Danny picked up his fork and gingerly poked the casserole. It squelched softly, an aromatic wave of cheesy goodness slamming into his head like Dash's punch had the day before. He winced, rubbing his head with his free hand, but forked up a small bite.

Every one of his instincts were battling with him as he brought the forkful up to his mouth. His human side was screaming at him to not eat something that smelled that bad. His ghost side was writhing in pain at the awful scent, begging him to run and find something better to feed off of. For a brief moment, his mind drifted to Sam.

_No._ He shook his head and forced his hand closer to his mouth. _I'm a perfectly weird teenage boy and I can eat a stupid macaroni casserole_. Trying his best not to breathe, he opened his mouth.

When the food was inches from actually making it inside his mouth, his hand abruptly went intangible. His fork slipped through his colorless fingers and Danny gasped as the fork clattered noisily to the floor. He thrust his hand into his lap as his family turned to look at him. Danny gave them a small smile and ducked under the table to retrieve his fork.

Carefully grabbing the fork, he ignored the painful tingles of his hand. He scrapped the macaroni off his fork and scooped a new bite. Danny stared at it, his body rebelling before the food had gotten an inch off of his plate, his hand completely refusing to move.

"What the…" he whispered to himself. Shaking his head, he quickly brought the bite to his mouth and tried one more time to eat the casserole. Once again, his body reacted to the painful scent of the food and the fork dropped loudly onto his plate.

"Danny, what _are_ you doing?" Maddie asked him, her eyebrows crinkling as she looked at him for a moment. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," Danny lied softly, not bothering to pick up the dropped fork as he rubbed at his fingertips. His fingers were freezing and rubbing his colorless, intangible fingers together felt… weird. Pressure, but no sensations – no feeling. "I'm just not hungry."

For a brief moment, he wondered if this would be a great place to talk to his mom about this ghost thing. He looked down at his lap, staring at his still-intangible fingers. Surely she'd have to believe him if she saw _that_.

He glanced up, watching his mother smile at Jazz and restart their conversation. His gaze flickered to his sister for a moment and Danny sighed. No… now wasn't the time to talk to her.

His family's conversation was interrupted by his father suddenly bounding up the stairs. Jack Fenton thundered into the kitchen and plopped his considerable bulk into the last of the kitchen chairs. His father wasn't really fat or muscular – but he was tall, broad, and had an immense presence to go with his huge form – and his size wasn't helped by the hunter-orange lab clothes he was still wearing. "Done!" he proclaimed as he piled his plate full of casserole, ignoring the dirty grease stains on his hands. "I used that new design I came up with Mads; the one with the ghost."

"Excellent, Jack. So we're all ready for tomorrow?" Maddie beamed at Jack.

"Everything's all packed!" Jack's eyes jumped from Maddie's to Danny's. "You all set?"

"Ghost hunting," Danny said, trying to cover up the dread in his voice. The _last_ thing he needed right now was to come in contact with any sort of ghost…again.

His father nodded. "Old man Grisbee said he'd meet us at the cabin to unlock everything at noon. Make sure you're up by about ten. It's an hour drive from here."

Danny quietly pushed his plate away from him and sighed. His parents spent the remainder of dinner chatting about what they were planning to do tomorrow and if they ever noticed that their son didn't eat any of his casserole, they didn't say a word.

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Danny stalked into his room after dinner, grumbling to himself about the impossible situation he'd gotten himself into. After everything that had happened the past few days… he was going _ghost hunting?_ He felt horrible about how relieved he was to be away from the kitchen table and his family. It had been entirely too creepy being able to smell his parents and knowing that he was sitting there _feeding _off of them.

He shivered suddenly, growling low in his throat. "And what was the deal with the macaroni?"

Suddenly he froze, his intestines curling around themselves and a strange feeling prickling the back of his neck. "What the…" He glanced around the room, his gaze drawn by an impossible sense that something was misplaced. Small model rocket ships hung from the ceiling and littered his cramped desk, his bed was an unmade mess, there was a pile of clothes on the floor waiting to be put away, and the various randomly-placed shelves were overflowing with dust, books… and an old teddy bear.

He snarled softly, feeling the thing in his stomach stretch out its claws. His world went blurry as he strode over to the toy and yanked it off the shelf, fumbling around with his fingers for the feel of the video camera he _knew_ was back there. When his hand closed around it, he snatched it to him, twirled around, and stormed out of his room.

"Jasmine Marilyn Fenton," he muttered darkly as he followed her cinnamon-tinged scent towards her bedroom, "I am going to…" Trailing off when he couldn't find a significantly evil consequence for what she'd done, he didn't even notice when he stomped straight through her closed (and still locked) bedroom door.

"Jazz!" he snapped, tangy-smelling surprise tingeing the cinnamon as she whirled around to face him. Danny blinked away the spectral world, focusing on the wide green eyes of his sister. "You _bugged my room_! _AGAIN!" _

Her eyes narrowed. "How else am I ever going to find out what's wrong with you?"

"_There's nothing wrong with me_," he snarled. He dropped the teddy bear and the video camera onto her neatly-made bed and walked up to her. "You bug my room _one more time_ and I'm telling Mom."

She stood up, her sixteen-year-old frame still a few inches taller than his. "I'm not stopping until I figure out what's wrong with you."

Danny swept his hand through his hair. "Jazz… yes, I agree that you're the _last_ person I'd come to if there was something wrong with me, but you have to trust that I'd go to Mom and Dad if something was wrong."

"You don't go to them about Dash's gang." Jazz pushed past him to pick up her teddy bear and turn the power off on her video camera.

"I can handle Dash's gang," Danny said sourly, "and you promised not to tell them about that."

She quietly tucked the teddy bear back up on a shelf and turned to her brother. "I want to help you, and I'm going to figure this out. You've been acting nuts now for a few days and I _know_ there's something up. Go to Mom and Dad if you want… but I'm not giving up."

Danny sighed and turned towards the door. "Stop bugging my room."

"Hallway's still fair game," Jazz agreed simply, flipping open the screen on the camera and rewinding the small amount of footage she'd gotten.

"Fine." Danny hesitated at the door, blinking in confusion when he finally noticed that it was still closed and locked. He unlocked the door and twisted the doorknob, closing the door a little louder than necessary behind him while he wondered how much Jazz had figured out and whether or not she'd noticed the locked door… wondered whether or not he _wanted_ her to have noticed.

Sitting gingerly on her bed, Jazz brushed her long red hair out of her eyes as she watched the short segment of tape she'd gotten for a second time. "There," she whispered, freezing the image of her brother glaring up at the camera, just beginning to reach for it with his hand. "Item thirty-one on the list of freaky."

On the screen, her brother's eyes seemed to sparkle with a glowing, green light.

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Self-made billionaire Vlad Masters could not get to sleep. He was the seventeenth richest man in the world, having recently displaced Stefan Persson and his eighteen billion; he had the world at his feet. It was illogical that a man of his standings and resources couldn't fall asleep. Yet there he was, hands behind his head, staring up at the dark hotel ceiling. Every time he closed his eyes and started to drift off he'd see _him_.

Scruffy black hair. Tortured blue eyes that blazed with emerald energy. Impossibly crackling power. It was almost dizzying to contemplate the potential that was locked inside of that mysterious child.

He curled up onto his side and crammed his pillow over his head for a moment, struggling against the urge to scream. "I am not _obsessing_ over some _stupid boy._"

No matter what words came out of his mouth nor how often the man said them, Vlad was not a fool – he knew exactly what was going on in his head. Twenty years of existing between the world of the living and the world of the dead had taught him to be very sure of his own mental state. Ghosts were obsessive by nature and Vlad had unfortunately inherited that particular weakness. It didn't matter how depressed he kept his ghost side, he was rapidly developing an extremely unhealthy attachment to the nameless child.

To make it all worse, he knew deep down that hiding from the boy and trying to stay away would just make the rapidly-growing obsession stronger.

Tossing his pillow to the foot of his bed, he levered himself up a bit and peered at the clock. "Two in the morning," he groaned, "it has got to be later than that."

He pushed himself out of bed and tripped sleepily over to the sink to grab a glass of water. Twin red eyes glinted back at him from the mirror. Vlad closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. "Stupid ghosts," he whispered, making his way back to his bed and flipping on a random channel.

Seventeen minutes of watching a horrible B-rated movie later, Vlad finally came to a decision. The meeting to acquire Axion Labs wasn't until the later afternoon; he had all morning and a good portion of the early afternoon to himself. He'd go find the boy one last time, then it would be over and done with. Hopefully he would be able to stave off this unfortunate obsession before it grew out of proportion. Get the boy's name, ask a few questions, then turn and walk away and never think of him again. It would be that simple.

Although most of his mind despised the idea and looked ahead to the just-planned meeting with a small bit of despair, he couldn't shake the small trickle of pleasure that was swirling in his stomach. He hated the happiness that his decision was bringing into his mind – he shouldn't be looking forwards to meeting with the boy at all. It was just a simple get-together of two folks caught in similar situations; it wasn't anything to get excited about.

When he finally fell asleep, his mind tormented him with various ideas and strategies for gaining the boy's trust and allegiance. A son… an heir… just plain company in this strange world he was trapped in?

Anything would be better than this lonely, self-hating existence.

In his sleep, a small smile played across the billionaire's lips.

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Old man Grisbee turned out to be even older than Danny had expected. Danny dropped the fourth really heavy box onto the ground next to the van with a loud clatter of instruments and waited while the frail man dug through his numerous old keys and tried every one of them in the rusty gate. "My grandson likes to come up here," the ancient man explained softly, "he's the one that has been noticing the strange things going on lately. Lots of weird cold areas and flickering lights. He said that the furniture was rearranged, once."

Finally finding the right key, the gate creaked open in a very haunted-house fashion. Danny rolled his eyes and picked up one of the boxes, following his parents away from their van. There were two obvious positive points about the old cabin: the first was that the trail leading up to the Grisbee's hunting cabin wasn't too long – he could see the rundown building from the road; the other was the fact that the place was well off the beaten path and none of his classmates would wander by and wonder what was up.

"It was built in 1913 – an auspicious year," Grisbee continued, teetering his way up the trail with his parents walking slowly behind, "invented income taxes that year, they did. That and Grand Central Station. Suppose you have to have the good with the bad. Anywho, my father built this cabin and used it for a variety of things that weren't so legal in 1913. Lots of hunting parties too."

"Did anyone die here?" Maddie asked, already scanning the gray cabin with a knowing eye.

"More likely than not, though they isn't a shred of proof." Grisbee thumped up the stairs and pushed open the unlocked front door. "Hunting accidents were good ways to cover up illegal going-ons." He gestured into the sparsely furnished room. "Should be all unlocked, it's yours for the day. I'm going to the union center for Bingo – I'll be back around six to lock it back up."

Danny set the impossibly heavy box on the floor with a groan before turning around to go retrieve the other three boxes, ignoring his parents' continued questioning of old man Grisbee. He'd learned years ago that 'helping' on a ghost hunt usually meant being the gopher. His job for the next few hours would consist of 'hold this', 'go get that', and 'don't touch that!'

Somewhere between the third and fourth trips back to the van to collect more of his parents' equipment, old man Grisbee finally made it back to his car and took off. After carting the last box of essentials up to the cabin, Danny dropped into one of the Grisbee's folding chairs and waited to be told what to do.

"It's too bad we don't have overnight to do this," Jack was saying with a dramatic sigh, "we never get good readings during the day."

Maddie smothered a small smile and shot Danny a look. "We don't get good readings at night, either," she whispered conspiratorially. Raising her voice, she grinned at Jack. "We'll just have to do our best." She rubbed a layer of dust off of her hands and onto her jeans before rifling through one of the boxes Danny had carted up from the van.

"Temperature sensors in every room," Danny's father rumbled, leaning over another box and sorting through the mess of equipment, "we've got more than enough sensors to do that. We'll set the motion-sensitive camera in the back room and spread out the audio recorders."

Danny tapped his heel against the floor and closed his eyes, tuning out his parents' upcoming argument about the placement of their equipment with the ease of long practice. He really didn't see the difference of where the stupid sensors were placed. His parents had never 'caught' a ghost on film and their EVP readings were shady at best.

_Thrump_.

Danny stiffened, his head twisted on his neck, instinctively searching for the source of the sound as the world cascaded into a blurry swirl of distant color. His breath rasped in his throat and his heart beat loudly in his ears as a chill flooded through him. Licking his lips, he waited for the inhuman noise to come again.

_Thrump_.

His toes curled in his shoes and his fingers clenched around the chair as a fierce anger suddenly swirled around him and exploded in his mind. He wanted to fight it, he wanted to tear it to pieces, but most of all he wanted it _gone_. And there was no doubt in his mind what 'it' was.

"Ghost," he breathed. His eyes searched through the blurred shadows for his parents, not being able to find them until he felt their scent drift through him. He could feel his hold on his warm, human body slipping out of his grasping fingers. Torn with a sudden internal conflict, he didn't know if he really wanted to turn into a ghost right in front of his parents. Finally they would believe him… but at what price?

Faces slipped into his mind, images that were burned forever into his brain. Sam, staring at him in fear just before she raced up the lab's stairs. Tucker, glaring at him in horrified disbelief as he realized that Danny was feeding off of their best friend. All too easily he could picture those expressions on his own parents' faces.

The nightmare of being hated and hunted by his own parents was all too clear in his mind.

Suddenly he fought back against the growing urge to turn into a ghost. His eyes snapped closed and he gritted his teeth, focusing on staying warm and solid and human. His parents loved him – he was sure of that – but he didn't want to chance it. The fear, the hatred, the inability to understand…

Seeing that in his parents' expressions would kill him.

_Thrump_.

The sound cut through him like a knife and he gasped, losing what little control he had over his transformation. He felt himself slipping, terror clawing at his throat as he wondered what his parents would say. He smelled for his parents, trying to find out where they were. Were they looking him? Concerned about what was going on? Afraid of him yet?

Their scent – metallic excitement and happy, warm apples – was faint.

Danny relaxed his fingers as the last tiny bit of his human body dissolved into energy, his impossibly glowing eyes flickering open to scan the room. His parents weren't in it.

_Thrump_.

But something else was.

He turned his head, easily fixing on the source of the sound. A tiny rotting creature, raw fear pulsing off of it, scurried past his feet and raced away from the approaching ghost. Danny drifted a little higher in the air, fighting the desire to track down the ghost that had caused all of this.

He waited, neon green eyes fixed on the spot he somehow knew the ghost would appear, his scarred and burned hands twisted around the bottom of the ragged black jacket he was wearing. Restless energy sparkled around him, emerald and electric, tendrils of unconscious rage and protectiveness coiling in his mind.

_Thrump_.

This place – this cabin, this space, these people – were _his_ and no stupid ghost was going to take this away from him. He bit his lip, drifting side to side anxiously as the ghost grew nearer. Tearing one hand out of where he had wrapped it in his jacket, he brushed it through his hair and a small, snarling whimper slipped from his mouth.

Human logic and reasoning were drowning as the encroaching ghost's aura brushed against Danny's mind and drew his supernatural desires to the front of his mind. Finally, unable to take the ghost's approach anymore, Danny moved.

He flew forwards, uncaring when he passed through the fuzzy and indistinct shape that might have been a wall, his gaze racing through the blurry landscape and over a few small ghosts until he found the source of the sounds. It was a huge presence, impossibly real against the watercolor background, green energy pulsing away from it in slow waves.

_Thrump_.

Danny hesitated, drawing away from the daunting waves of energy, confusion warring in his spectral mind. He wanted to fight, he _needed_ to destroy this thing that had come into his space… but it was so powerful. Perhaps too powerful.

Suddenly the presence turned its head, twin green eyes fixing on Danny's form, power exploding into existence around the creature like a small star. Danny closed his eyes, turning his head away, not too surprised to learn that the light didn't diminish when he did that. Something inside of him knew that he didn't have eyes, not really – he wasn't _seeing_ anything – so closing them made no difference. He was _feeling_ the tidal wave of raw energy that the ghost had thrown towards him. But it still _felt_ bright.

He blinked his eyes back open, knowing that the ghost had approached while his eyes were closed and was hovering just a few feet in front of him, and trailed his eyes up the ghost's massive chest and into its face. Danny, about a third the size of the huge silver ghost, narrowed his eyes and snarled.

"What are you?" the other ghost hissed, the condemned wails of the damned screaming in its voice. Its mouth didn't move as it spoke.

Danny didn't answer. His human mind was screaming at him to run away – there was no possible way that he could stand up to this ghost. Unfortunately, being this close to a ghost made his ability to access his human rationality extremely limited. Unthinking, unable to reason out a logical solution, lost to a spectral consciousness he couldn't hope to control, Danny did the only thing his ghost side could come up with: _attack the intruder_.

He growled, threw himself upwards until he was even with the gigantic ghost's head, and punched. Emerald energy exploded around his fist when it connected and Danny screamed in pain and fury. Pulling back, he kicked out with a foot and slammed it into the ghost's chest before trying to punch the ghost again.

A strong hand clenched around Danny's wrist and he felt himself being yanked upwards and away from his target. "Lemme go," he snarled, energy pulsing around him and slamming into the other ghost as it held him tightly.

The silver ghost howled at the onslaught and threw Danny away. "Abomination," it growled, pacing around the irate boy, "you are an abomination… and I will kill you."

Although his feet weren't touching the ground, Danny crouched and sent a swirl of energy pulsing through the air. He narrowed his eyes and power built up around him, his mind losing its ability to understand what was going on. The presence of the other ghost was just too much. It was grating against his nerves and steadily destroying what was left of his human side. The ghost needed to be gone.

Finally, only one even vaguely human thought was left in his head: _Sam is mine_.

_Sam is mine; you can't have her._

"_Can't_," he screamed, not really knowing what he was saying. "_Can't. Mine!"_ He was moving through the air towards the intruding ghost, his fingers curling into claws and his impossibly white hair smoking with power. He clawed at the ghost's face, feeling his sharp fingers scrape along the ghost's metallic skin.

He couldn't understand why he couldn't hurt it – he couldn't comprehend the fact that its skin seemed to be some kind of metal – he was just furious at the fact that his attack had done nothing but startle the other ghost. "_MINE!"_ He threw himself into another attack, slamming his shoulder into the silver ghost's chest and releasing a huge wave of emerald energy. The power rushed at the ghost and Danny could feel his supernatural attack smash into the ghost and send it reeling.

Danny recoiled away from the intruder, sitting back on his haunches, his neon eyes fixed on the silver ghost with a feral, deadly intensity. Ethereal energy poured off of him and cascaded around him, crackling and sizzling with an impossible paranormal force. _"Mine_," he snarled softly.

"Abomination," the silver ghost spat, but drifted a few more feet away. "You don't deserve to exist."

_"Can't_," Danny growled, his whole body shaking as the desire to attack the invading ghost once more coiled up inside of him, "_mine_." His claws were clenched at his sides, his hair billowing around him like flames, his sharp fangs biting into his lips as he spoke. "_Mine_."

The ghost took a single step forwards. Danny uncoiled, supernatural energy flaring around him as his body arrowed through the air. He slashed at the larger ghost, clawing and biting and scratching and kicking and ramming the ghost with wave after ferocious wave of power. He attacked blindly, instinctively, tearing into the ghost with the sole intent of destroying the invading ghost forever.

He didn't give an inch – he _couldn't_ stop or show mercy, not anymore – but the awful truth was that the silver ghost was simply more powerful than he was. The silver ghost's huge fist grabbed around the back of Danny's neck and threw the boy off of itself, following the throw with a wash of green energy that sizzled through Danny's body and sent him into a head-over-heels spin.

Danny twirled through the air, struggling to regain control of his tumbling flight. When he finally did, he twisted around to glare at the silver ghost. A small shiver of triumph snuck into his rage-filled mind when he saw the scratches, dents, and burns that covered the other ghost's body. Even one of the silver ghost's green eyes was gone.

It stared at him with its one good eye, fury crackling visibly around its huge form. "Abomination," it ground out, "we will kill you – be sure of that."

Then it vanished.

"_NO!_" Danny dove through the air, puling himself to a stop when he reached the place where the giant silver ghost had just been hanging. He spun around in a circle, closing his eyes as he searched for the inhuman feel of a ghost in the area.

Nothing.

"I want…" he stuttered as his supernatural anger drained away into confusion. "But I need… I want… I… I just…" His senses were still all on alert; he still _needed_ to destroy the ghost that had threatened his human. No one got to be near _his _Sam. His… Sam…

He blinked suddenly, licking his lips and unsteadily brushing a hand through his still-smoldering hair as human rationality poured back into his consciousness. Sam wasn't his and the ghost _hadn't_ threatened her. But… then why had he felt like it had? Why was he still feeling like Sam was his?

He blew out a long breath, hesitated long enough to wonder how he'd just done that when he didn't have longs to breathe with, then shook his head and took another calming breath. "Great," he whispered, "this is all just… _great_." It really wasn't worth even trying to figure out why he had reacted the way he had. Not yet, anyways. He was sure that Sam and Tucker would be able to help him on Monday.

As the last of his ghost-induced fury slipped away, Danny let himself drop though the air until he was hovering just above the green blur that was (most likely) the grass. "At least the ghost is gone," he muttered. Now all he needed to do was figure out how to turn human again.

_Thrump_.

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Vlad Masters drummed his manicured fingernails against the steering wheel of his rented car, silently cursing the universe in general. His meeting was due to start in less than two hours and he hadn't seen hide-nor-hair of the annoying child that would not leave his mind. He'd been all over Amity Park proper, searching for the barest trickle of scent from the boy. When he had come up empty, he had slowly widened his circles into the outskirts of the city.

He was currently in the middle of nowhere, staring at the same red light he'd been staring at for at least ten minutes, wishing he were anywhere else. These stupid obsessions were something he had been living with for two decades, but they did not make them easier to deal with. They were like itches that needed to be scratched – they got worse until you inevitably scratched them.

The boy was an itch. An annoying, pervasive, all-encompassing itch that made everything else pale in comparison.

And now he'd have to go to a meeting with that itch still not having been scratched. It would drive him crazy throughout the meeting and, no doubt, he'd ultimately lose the Axion contract because of it.

"Is this light _never_ going to turn green?" he snapped in irritation, his eyes flaring blood red in the afternoon sunshine.

That's when he felt it: the smell of a cold winter morning, the taste of the air after a lightning storm, the feel of being head-over-heels out of control, the sound of potential and possibility ripping through the sky.

Vlad's head turned, his ghost side reacting instantly to the source of his obsession.

Every plan he'd had for a short, civilized conversation with the boy went out the window as he grabbed his briefcase and phased cleanly through the door, leaving his car at the eternal red light.

Plasmius wanted to _possess_.

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Danny growled softly, stalking through the blurry world that was the spectral side of Grisbee's hunting cabin. Dozens of small ghosts, screaming defiantly with voices that rang with the shrieks of the condemned, scurried away from the waves of chilling energy that were flowing off of his form.

_Something_ was approaching him and it was setting every one of his spectral nerves on fire.

Without any thought at all, he could pinpoint his parents. Both of them were staked out quite a distance away where their apple and metal scents cascaded through the spectral realm and drew all sorts of the tiny ghostly creatures out of their personal hiding holes. Danny didn't give either the small animals or his parents a second thought – his being was focused entirely on the distant _thrump_ of the approaching ghost.

The sound echoed through him, buzzing annoying against his nerves and sliding through his mind. For some reason, the spectral heartbeat felt… _tainted_. Wrong. Infected.

Danny shuddered when another _thrump_ sliced through him, slipping slimily around in his head and pushing his raw spectral emotions farther into his mind. He slipped forward a few more feet, squinting through the blur in an attempt to find the source of the sound and feeling more 'human' than he ever had in his ghost form before. After a few seconds, he closed his eyes and _breathed_, letting his ghost side sort through the impossible jangle of smells, searching for some more information on the ghost heading his way.

"Boy."

He shivered at the stained voice drifting through him, his glowing eyes flickering open. Standing amongst the fuzzy and indistinct objects of the human world, a man was gazing at him. The man's eyes were glowing a fierce red, black hair swept backwards and up, a ragged white and red coat dangling down around his legs. He wasn't quite as in focus as the small spectral animals that ranged around the cabin, but he was definitely a presence in the ghost world. Not a ghost… more like a human with a bit of a ghost super-glued around him.

"A full spectral form," the man continued, tipping his head to the side and studying Danny with eyes that were narrowed in his etched and pocketed face. "Interesting." His voice didn't sound like the man was very interested. He sounded annoyed… and pleased.

Danny drifted backwards, instinctively bringing his hands up and charging the air with energy, confused and strangely worried about the fact that he was still in full control of his body. His 'ghost side' wasn't taking over. "Who are you?" he asked nervously, inwardly shuddering at the screams of the damned that coiled in his voice.

"I," the man… the ghost?... said with a cold smile that showed his fang-like teeth, "am Plasmius. And you interest me quite a bit, ghost child."

"What…" Danny glanced over his shoulder in the direction of his parents and turned back around to the _thing_ standing in front of him. "What are you?"

"Playing twenty questions, are we?" He stooped down and picked up a hazy object that had been sitting near his feet and it slowly gained focus as the man continued to talk. "_I_ am a human that has been irrevocably contaminated with a variant form of plasma _created_," he snapped open the briefcase he had picked up and a horrible sneer entered his voice, "by an idiot in his indomitable quest to verify the existence of the spectral realm." The man's eyes flared red, spectral energy washing out of his body in a visible wave. "A mistake that he _will_ pay for."

Danny licked his chapped lips, slipping a few feet farther away from the man, refusing to let himself get caught up in trying to understand what the obviously insane man had just said. "And…"

Red eyes glittered as Plasmius pulled a plastic bag out of his briefcase before dropping the case to the ground. "I am not a ghost, boy; you needn't be afraid of me. I am, actually, here to help you."

"Help?" Danny's ears perked up a little and his hands came down. "How can you help me?"

"I know certain tricks and…" the man trailed off, his eyes blazing red as they focused on a spot far behind Danny. "And…" He took a few stumbling, unthinking steps before tripping over something Danny couldn't see on the ground. The man suddenly shook his head, snarling at himself. "Stop that."

Danny was quiet, waiting.

Plasmius straightened, pulling on the front of his red and white coat before coughing and continuing. "As I said, I know certain tricks and inventions that would be able to keep your spectral presence to a minimum." His eyes sparkled as he held up the bag, small chunks inside. "I could help you be _human_."

"Normal?" Danny breathed. Only four days as a ghost-human thing and he was totally ready for it to be over. It was like a dream come true… almost too good to be true. Eleven years of being the best friend to a very cynical person suddenly jumped into his front of his mind.

_It was almost too good to be true. _

"What do you want?" Danny asked softly, narrowing his green eyes. "What's the price?"

"Nothing but good things for you, child." Plasmius smiled at him, but the frozen smile didn't reach his eyes. "Come live with me; I'll teach you great things and give you the best future that anyone could ever ask for."

"I can't live with you." Danny shook his head. "I've got a family."

Plasmius' evil smile grew a little pitying. "They don't really understand you or love you, you misguided boy. You can't ever be a part of the human world – you must know that. Your spectral side won't ever allow you to be loved and have friends."

Danny backpedaled, energy swirling around him as his body reacted to the words the man in front of him was using. Disbelief, fear, anger, and a distant feeling of _maybe he's right_ danced through his mind. _It can't be true… _"I have a family and they love me," Danny retorted as power built up around him. All of his hair was standing on end, his eyes glowing wildly and small static-like bursts of energy sizzling over his clothes.

"Take it from someone who knows," Plasmius snarled, "they _don't_. They _can't_. Ghosts and humans don't mix for a reason."

Forcing the energy to dissipate, Danny growled softly. "Stay away from me, whatever-you-are."

"I'm just trying to help," the man said, his cruel grin fading, "and eventually you'll thank me for it."

The man ripped open his zip-locked back and reached inside. Almost instantly, Plasmius disappeared into the vague blur that was all ghosts could see of humans. A split second later, Danny screamed as painful washes of energy cascaded over him. Smells jangled in his brain and dashed all of his thoughts into nothingness. He _felt_ a cube being tossed in his direction, rolling to a stop just under his feet as pure agony danced up through him and Danny's world began to grow black.

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Vlad Masters stared down at the zip-locked bag in his hand, a look of disbelief in his eyes at what Plasmius had just done. He needed to stop kidding himself: Plasmius _was_ him. What _he_ had just done. The boy was barely visible as he twisted and flailed in mid-air, the screams of the spectral teenager tearing through the air and making the human world quake and crack.

He took a step forwards, blocking out the pain created by the permeating smell of the cheese fizzing against his nerves. "Child," he whispered, his blue-green eyes wide with horror. True, the hellish smell drove him wild… but long exposure had deadened him to most of the scent's effects. He had never expected it to be _that_ painful for the teenager. The half-thought-of point had been to subdue the boy and kidnap him, not kill him.

The boy had far more spectral potential than he did – that much was obvious. Just the fact that the boy hadn't reverted to human yet showed how much power was inside of him. All that potential lent him every advantage but it came with all of the ghosts' enormous disadvantages as well. Vlad sighed, walking straight through the boy twitching in midair and scooping up the small cube of cheddar cheese. He flung it off into the woods, his mind conjuring up images of the dozens of animal ghosts that would be fleeing from its smell despite the fact he couldn't see them at the moment.

"I hate ghosts," Vlad muttered darkly, watching the nearly unconscious teenager drift aimlessly in the air. "I hate Jack for doing this to me." He grabbed his briefcase and stalked away, leaving the still-nameless boy to fend for himself. "I hate all of this. I'm going home where _Plasmius_ and his stupid _instincts_ won't bother me anymore."

"And I am _not_ going to continue to obsess over some stupid teenager!"

Despite his words, Vlad threw his briefcase off into the woods and bit back a scream.

No matter how hard he wished, no matter how much he tried, no matter what drugs or 'tricks' he used… he knew that the boy was going to be something in his mind and there was absolutely nothing in the world that would be able to stop it from happening. Uncaring about his upcoming important meeting and how dirty his expensive suit was going to get, Vlad Masters sank to the ground and buried his head in his hands. "Damn it all," he whispered.

Any number of people had fallen into his eye before… and a large percentage of them were now either dead or so completely broken that they wished they were dead. His ghost obsessions drove him relentlessly and eventually his human side grew too weak to stop whatever was coming. By this point, wasn't anything that Plasmius wouldn't do to get what he wanted. Very few things were outside of his grasp.

"If there's any god out there that will listen to me anymore," he breathed, looking up into the afternoon sky, "protect that boy from me."

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Danny's green eyes drifted open and he stared around him in disbelief. That amount of pain… it still burned in his arms and legs, wrapped around his chest, and sizzled in his head. The distant echoing cries of the half-eaten spectral animals pounded in his mind, making his entire brain hurt.

"Ow…" Drifting higher into the air, he smelled for his parents, relieved to find them still sitting somewhat close by. Both of his parents' scents were tinged with the sharp smell of excitement. His encounter with… Plasmius… had probably set off every one of their ghost detectors.

_They don't really love you… they can't love you._

Danny shook his head, then winced at the ache that speared through his head at the movement. "Shut up."

_You can't ever be a part of the human world._

Crossing his legs, he buried his face in his hands – unknowingly mimicking the position of the only other ghost-human hybrid in the world, huddled just a few hundred feet away – and tried to block out the echoing voice that fizzled in his brain and refused to disappear. Danny wasn't entire sure which hurt more: the voice and the pain it had brought, or the sharp feeling in his mind that maybe, just _maybe_, the insane man had a point.

_Take it from someone who knows._

--In _real life_, a little rain must fall.

(end chapter 8)


	10. Sometimes Pieces Just Fall Into Place

**Real Life**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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Chapter 9

In Which Sometimes Pieces Just Fall into Place

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Danny huddled in the green nothingness of the human forest around him. Glowing eyes traced over the blurry trees and emerald lumps, despair etching itself deep in his heart. Small ghosts, the local inhabitants of this section of the human world, were crystal-sharp as they poked their heads out of their holes and slipped past him.

That _thing_ – the man who had somehow set all of Danny's nerves on fire, who whispered words that echoed in his mind, who effortlessly shattered all of his defenses – was nowhere to be seen. But those torturous words still reverberated through the ghostly hollow. _'They'll never accept you…'_

He wanted to turn everything off for a few minutes, make the world stop turning for a second, stop time itself just long enough to figure out what was going on and what he wanted to have happen next… but he couldn't. Images of his friends' terrified faces flashed unstoppably through his mind; the sticky-sweet scent of their fear racing through his memories. He could see his family, his friends, _everyone_ screaming and running and leaving him alone. In his mind he could see it just like it was actually happening – everyone rejecting him because he was some sort of freak.

"Stop," he whispered painfully, closing his eyes and drifting a little closer to the 'ground'. The pictures in his mind didn't stop however. Instead, the sound of his own echoing voice, dripping with supernatural power, made his stomach lurch. "I don't want this."

_'…take it from someone who knows.'_

"I don't want to be like this!" The tainted, slimy waves of power from that thing, _Plasmius_, curled around him in a half-remembered daze, causing Danny's eyes to flicker open. Plasmius had offered him a way out, a solution – one that Danny was all too willing to take.

But the man wasn't there.

A sudden swirl of a ghostly breeze made his hair shift in front of his eyes and brought the faint scent of apples and circuit boards, both tinged with excitement, to his nose. Danny's head swiveled towards the entrancing smell, his ghost side instantly interested in his parents' powerful emotions. His tongue flicked out and licked his lips, his body slowly untangling and starting to drift towards his meal.

Danny jerked backwards, his eyes wide and startled as he realized what he was doing. "Those are my _parents_," he snarled hopelessly, trying frantically to ignore the strange, hungry feeling growing inside of him. "I'm not going to…"

He trailed off, unable to complete the thought that he was _feeding_ off of his parents. Twirling, he raced in the other direction, desperate to escape the cloying, addicting scents of his human parents. He barreled through the blurry sky, pushing himself faster and faster, unaware when he switched from running from his parents to running from his own thoughts.

_'They'll never accept you, boy.'_

Uncaring about his destination, he swirled through the ghostly sky, dodging the dead remnants of the local birds. _What kind of a monster am I?_ he thought, unaware that tears were growing in his eyes. _How can I make it stop_?

The only thing he knew was that he couldn't handle it alone anymore; he couldn't keep pushing everyone away or he was going to go insane. Only, he didn't know who to talk to. His parents didn't believe him when he'd told them he was a ghost. His friends were just teenagers – and already scared of him. If he told them everything, they'd run away.

His thoughts chased themselves in pointless circles. Then, far from any living soul and too far away to feel the pulsing auras of the humans of Amity Park, he smelled it.

_Rainbows_…

Every thought in his mind crashed to a stop and his direction changed instantly. The scent of his parents held nothing over this smell – one that he was hopelessly, helplessly addicted to.

Minutes later, one word finally trickled into his mind.

_Mine._

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Sam was taking a nap. Normally she wouldn't – waking up late usually gave her enough energy to make it through the day – but she'd felt strangely exhausted all day. For hours she'd tried to figure out why she was so tired, but had recently given it up as a lost cause and had simply collapsed on her bed to take a nap.

She hadn't done anything to tire herself out; it was Saturday and, since Danny was grounded, she'd spent the whole day at home watching old movies and avoiding her parents like they had the plague. Her mind hadn't really been focused on the movies; it had swirled around in circles over everything that had happened the past week instead. The fact that her thoughts had twirled in endless loops was _very_ tiring.

Her nap wasn't very refreshing, however.

_"So it'll never work… but you definitely have to go in so I can get a picture for my scrapbook."_

_"Me?" Danny asked incredulously._

_"It's your basement." _

Sam curled up around her pillow, her forehead wrinkled in her sleep as that fateful afternoon raced through her head over and over again. Every thought, action, and emotion was crystal-clear.

Each time the dream played itself out, Sam knew the outcome. She dreaded it, tossing and turning in her bed, her stomach painful as the nightmare moved irresistibly forwards. There was no way to change what had happened. There was no way to 'fix' her mistake.

_She hesitated at Danny's quick grin, feeling her stomach give an odd little lurch, then raised her camera to take a picture of him inside the portal. "Yeah, and it'll be all over the school by the end of the week," she heard Tucker say. Just as her finger clicked down on the shutter, Danny lunged for their friend and everything went a startling emerald._

She whimpered aloud and her fingers curled into fists, her heart starting to beat a little faster at what was about to happen. Danny was going to die – die because of _her_, die because she had _asked_ him to stand in that portal – and she had to watch it over and over again in her dreams. Only… the nightmares never followed reality after the bright flash of green light.

Her dreams twisted agonizingly, tearing into her, pushing every one of her buttons and dancing with her worst fears. Danny – nothing more than a monster – chasing her, feeding off of her, trying to avenge his death…

_The creature looked up at her, green eyes shimmering with barely contained energy. Pain, anguish, and terror swirled through her and grabbed at her heart as the creature's eyes narrowed. "You killed me," it whispered, its voice echoing with the screams of the dead. "Sam… why?"_

_"I didn't…"_

_"It was your idea. Why?!" _

_"I didn't!"_

_"Sam?"_

_The monster reached out to grab her, those strange not-quite-real fingers wrapping feather-soft around her arm, those oh-so-familiar green eyes full of pain and death._

Sam screamed at the touch and lurched out of her disturbed sleep, her eyes flying open and her heart slamming in her chest. She couldn't help a gasp of surprise when two very real emerald eyes were gazing down at her. Scrambling away from the ghost that was hovering over her bed, her back hit the headboard before she realized who her invader was. "Danny!" she hissed, trying to force her heart into a normal pace.

Her friend's eyes were dilated, his vacant stare fixed on hers. Sam spent a moment to convince herself that _yes_, Danny was a ghost but _no, _he wasn't dead and _no, _he wasn't there to kill her. Her breath was still rasping loudly in her throat when she noticed that Danny hadn't said anything. All he was doing was staring at her. "Danny?" Her racing heart slowed its pounding in her ears as she leaned forwards to wave a hand in front of her friend's blank face. "Hello?"

Danny's form suddenly blurred and he vanished, reappearing a heartbeat later on the other side of her room. He had his impossible eyes closed and was shaking his head as if to clear it. "Sam."

She blinked at the fear and desperate longing in Danny's voice that was managing to shine through in just that one word. "What…?" She wanted to ask what he thought he was doing, why he'd been in her room and staring at her, why he was feeding off of her – but the pure terror and confusion in Danny's voice made her change her question. "What's wrong?"

Emerald eyes flickered open, his gaze trained down at his transparent hands. "I… wanted to talk to you," he said softly, his words barely audible in his echoing voice. As he played with the edges of his black sleeves, Sam noticed that Danny was almost shaking, his body slowly drifting more transparent as he spoke. "I thought… I'm sorry I woke you up."

"It's okay," she said, allowing him a small smile to show that she meant it. Her eyes flickered over towards the clock. "I needed to wake up anyways." She stretched her arms over her head and wiped the last bit of sleep out of her eyes, trying to ignore the goose bumps that were racing up her arms at Danny's presence. He _wasn't_ there to kill her and she knew that – but she still couldn't shake the chill feeling in her stomach. "What's up?"

He shrugged, floating a little higher in the air and biting his lip, not looking up at her. "It's kind of stupid. I'll just go. Sorry."

"I want to hear what it is." Standing up on her bed, Sam took a few unsteady steps forwards so that she was at eye-level with her best friend and only a few feet away. When he suddenly glanced up at her, she glared straight into his eyes, wondering briefly why his eyes didn't seem to focus on her correctly. "You're here, you woke me up, now _speak_, boy."

There was total silence for a moment as Danny stared through her, then he blinked and instantly backpedaled in the air. When he was on the other side of the room from her again, he crossed his arms uncertainly over his chest and looked away from her. "You're not…"

"Not what?" Sam put her hand on her hips, starting to get frustrated at Danny's lack of words. She had no idea what was going on and if Danny thought he was going to be able hang around like this without telling her, he was going to be sorely mistaken.

"…Afraid of me," Danny finished, his tone so soft that it was almost unintelligible under the echoes and strange undercurrents that laced his voice.

Sam arched an eyebrow. She _was_ still slightly afraid of him, but she felt no desire to inform him of that fact. The mere fact that he was a ghost was making all the hairs on her neck stand on end. However, since it was largely her fault this had happened to him, she couldn't toss him away like yesterday's trash. "Why would I be afraid of you? You're…"

"_Sammy?"_

Glancing at her door, Sam snarled softly, trying to decide if her parents were around merely to interrupt conversations when she was about to get someone to say something important. "Stupid parents and their stupid timing," she whispered darkly.

Her mother's voice rose again. "If you're up, come help me pick out a dress for the convention tonight. I'm not sure about this purple one."

Sam rolled her eyes, twisting back around to face her almost-transparent best friend. "Nasty Burger, fifteen minutes," she ordered as Danny disappeared. She sighed and grabbed her cell phone, spending a moment to send a text message to Tucker before heading off to meet her doom with her mother.

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Danny shivered as he faded from view, keeping his eyes on the distant wisps of Sam's aura. His arms were tight across his chest, his fingers digging painfully into his arms as he tried to deny what his ghost side was pushing him to do. _It_ wanted nothing more than to follow the Goth girl, feed off of her, steal the energy she needed to live…

"No," he snarled, holding perfectly still, his eyes shut as he desperately grappled with his ghost side. He could feel himself slipping… losing his grasp on his human side. The rainbows dancing in Sam's aura were pulling at him too strongly for him to resist. The only reason he'd managed to pull out of that ghost-like daze earlier was because Sam's emotions had switched so quickly when she'd woken up. It had been like a supernatural slap in his face, startling him enough to get a handhold on his human mind and have a short conversation with the girl.

But now he was losing it again, the world glazing over, and there wouldn't be any way out of it. He fought against the drowning feeling as his ghost side rose up irrepressibly, struggled and clawed to keep his human side dominant, but it was like trying to bail out a sinking ocean liner with a hand-held bucket. "I'm not some mindless ghost," he hissed to himself even has he felt his body start to move and follow Sam through her house.

He balked and his body stopped just for a moment, desperate for a solution. He didn't want to hurt Sam again. He just needed to turn human – but he had no idea how do that. Shutting his eyes tightly, his whole body trembling with the desire to chase after Sam, he awkwardly reached into his mind for the warm, heavy feeling of being human. He wrapped it around his mind and, to his surprise and delight, the impossible-to-resist tingle of Sam's aura faded slightly.

Danny was instantly focused on the odd, heavy feeling, pushing all thoughts of ghosts and floating and auras and rainbows out of his head. _Come on… _His fingers and toes tingled and, slowly but surely, Sam's aura faded away and Danny started to regain control.

He suddenly dropped to the floor, a hard breath slamming into his lungs, his heart painfully beginning to throb in his chest. For a few seconds he stayed crouched on the floor, trying to absorb what had just happened. A very human hand – still cold, but regaining its human warmth – crept up to brush his black hair out of his face. "What the…" he trailed off and straightened up, looking around Sam's bedroom.

Gazing down at his human hands and checking himself in Sam's mirror, he quickly reassured himself that he was back to normal. _Or_, he thought dismally, _as normal as I can get_. "I hate this," he whispered, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

The thought of Plasmius and his offer of help quietly drifted through Danny's mind, causing the boy to sigh. _I want to be normal again_.

"Bye Mom!" Sam suddenly shouted from deep inside the house. Danny's head jerked up, his eyes widening as he realized where he was. There was no way he wanted to be caught in Sam's room by her parents.

"But Samantha," Pamela called as Danny turned and headed for Sam's window, quickly prying it open and edging out onto the tree limb Sam often used to escape her parents, "I'm still not sure about this dress. Mr. Masters will be there and I want to look my best!"

There was no response from Sam as Danny dropped heavily to the ground. With one last glance up at the room he had entered as a ghost and left as a human, Danny shook his head and hurried to catch up with his friend.

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"Aren't you grounded?" Tucker asked for the fourth time as he pulled a few of the fries out of his extra-large order and popped them into his mouth. He'd been having a wonderful afternoon playing _Doomed_ – and winning for once – when he'd gotten Sam's message. He didn't really mind coming to the Nasty Burger and he wanted to talk to his odd best friend anyways, so it hadn't taken much convincing on Sam's part to get him to log out of the game.

His friend was acting weirder and stranger every time Tucker bumped in to him. Today, Danny was flinching whenever Sam came within a few feet of him, he was a lot quieter than normal, and he hadn't looked at anything but the floor yet. _At least_, Tucker thought_, he's not hunting anyone or doing anything paranormal yet._

Actually, Danny was acting more human than he had in a while. Danny's eyes hadn't slipped into that 'dead' mode since they'd met up to order food and Danny wasn't giving off that aura that caused any sane creature to run away from him. But, human or otherwise, the other boy was still acting very weird.

Tucker quietly chewed on a fry, watching with an arched eyebrow as Danny shuddered and slipped to the very edge of his bench. When he finally came to the conclusion that his original question wasn't going to get an answer, he decided to ignore it and opened his mouth to ask what this impromptu meeting was about.

"What's up, Danny?" Sam asked, beating Tucker to the punch and stealing one of his fries. Tucker flicked an annoyed look in her direction before settling in to watch Danny answer the question.

Danny glanced at her, his blue eyes a little wild, before dropping his gaze back to the table. "I… I just… wanted…"

Sam reached across the table and grabbed Danny's hand. "Danny…"

Danny instantly wrenched his fingers out of her grip, pulling his arms tight against his chest. "I don't…" Blinking in surprise, Tucker watched as Danny started to shiver, closing his eyes and hunching his shoulders like he was trying to curl into a small ball. "Leave me alone," Danny whispered, desperation in his voice.

"I thought you _wanted_…" Sam said, confused.

"No, not you." Danny's eyes opened, the normal blue sparkling with emerald fireflies. He gave a half-hearted, frustrated chuckle and said, "The ghost that's following you around."

Sam flinched, her eyes wide as she scanned the small fast food restaurant, but Tucker wasn't paying any attention to her. Instead he was watching Danny closely, fascinated by the emotions playing on his friend's face. Fear and worry were being replaced by something that looked like fury, the life draining from Danny's eyes and turning them a dead shade of blue. "What does the ghost look like?" Tucker asked softly, his heart starting to beat faster as the sharp aura of a predator flickered into existence around Danny.

The only response Tucker got from the ghost-boy sitting at the table was a growl_._ Tucker couldn't help the flinch, but his mind quickly shelved the thought that Danny was angry with him. The fact that Danny's gaze was locked onto the empty space in the aisle seemed to indicate that Danny was growling at something over there – the ghost, Tucker assumed.

Tucker blinked in surprise when he suddenly realized that Danny was acting just like the neighbor's dog. Territorial, furious at anything that came near what she considered to be hers, and unable to ignore any other dogs that came within a hundred feet of her. _Danny…?_ Tucker stared at his best friend in shock as a few pieces suddenly fell into place, coaxed there by things Danny had said earlier and Tucker's own thoughts.

_He can't help it. When there's something his ghost side reacts to, he's helpless to fight it._ Tucker's gaze dropped to the table, his mind whirring, as Danny's low growl stopped and the oppressively haunting feeling ebbed away. _He's trying, but there's just nothing he can do. I can't imagine being that out of control and how it would feel. I just... SAM!_

He jerked his gaze back up as a thought sliced through his mind. _Danny reacts to_ _Sam_… but Danny was just quietly sitting at the table, running his hands over his face. _Why isn't he trying to 'hunt' Sam?_

"It was a fox," Danny muttered through his hands. "Idiot, stupid, _annoying_ fox with hole through its chest."

"What?"

He raised his head and tried for a small grin. "You asked what the ghost looked like."

Tucker leaned forwards on the table, pushing his fries out of the way. "Why didn't you answer when I asked it?" he asked, even though he thought he knew the answer.

"I couldn't," Danny said sourly as he slouched in his chair, shaking his head and crossing his arms back over his chest. "I heard you ask it and I knew what you were asking… I just couldn't answer."

"Oh." A tiny, satisfied smile was on Tucker's face as he let himself relax against the hard chair. He popped another fry into his mouth. _I was right. Wonder why he didn't start hunting Sam.._. "And no Sam?"

At that question, an actual smile appeared on Danny's face for a moment. "I'm learning something, I guess."

"I'm totally lost," Sam admitted, an angry note to her voice. "When you two boys stop being psychic and answering questions that make no sense, let me know."

A small laugh slipped out of Danny's throat, but his expression was uneasy as he started to talk. He kept glancing at the two of them out of the corner of his eye, almost like he was afraid they were going to get up and run away. "There are two worlds, Sam; one that's the human world that you know and one that's this ghost world. It's covered in these spooky little ghosts that creep and crawl all over the place. All of them feed off of humans – they follow us around all the time. Every human's got this… _smell_. It's not really a smell, but…" Danny broke off with a shrug. "Everyone smells different."

"An aura?" Sam asked.

Danny shrugged. "Probably. I _think_ ghosts feed off the emotions or the souls of humans. That 'aura' is the only thing a ghost can see. It's really the only thing a ghost _needs_ to see; it's almost like ghosts were designed for tracking down humans."

"Evolution in ghosts?" Tucker's eyebrows raised at the thought, surprised by how interested he was. Was it possible that ghosts had evolved to be a human's natural predator? That would explain why he felt so much like 'prey' when Danny was around in his ghost form.

"_Creation_ in ghosts," Sam muttered.

"Whichever it is," Danny interrupted, obviously not wanting to get into that argument, "the ghost world is completely different from the human world. It comes with its own rule book, kind of." He hesitated, his mouth moving silently for a moment, then shook his head and sighed. "It's just really different."

Tucker opened his mouth to ask a question, thinking that Danny didn't know what to say next, but the words suddenly started to roll out of Danny's mouth. "It's impossible to describe what it feels like sometimes. It's almost like there's this ghost inside of me that's telling me what to do and I can't fight it at all. I try and I try but when a ghost comes by the only thing I can think of doing is destroy it. Me – _destroying_ something! I can't _stand_ it when ghosts come by me or my house or my family… or you, Sam."

Danny glanced up at the girl. "It's because of how you smell, I think. When I smell you every single thought stops dead in my brain and the only thing I want to do is to stay right next to you and to keep smelling you, to keep feeling your aura. It feels like what heaven probably feels like. I _can't_ fight it… and I don't really want to."

_I wonder if that's why ghosts are attracted to human auras – they feel like heaven._ Tucker chewed slowly on his fry, watching his friend. _Interesting choice of words, Danny_._ Stuck in the human world, searching for a way to get to the afterlife…_

"Not even human you?" Sam whispered.

"There's only _one_ me," Danny said, his voice a little distant as he confessed, "and yeah. Even human me."

"Oh," Sam said softly, staring down at the half-eaten order of fries.

"It's getting worse too," Danny continued, his voice quiet. "At first it wasn't so bad – I was just a human with a ghost body super-glued onto me. But I think that my ghost side is getting stronger. It's getting harder to control what my ghost side wants."

Tucker nodded, catching on. "But you're getting a little control over it, right?"

"A little," Danny said with a shrug. "On Thursday in the cafeteria there was a ghost… and then I got distracted by you, Sam. That's why…" he trailed off and took a deep breath. "Sorry."

"It's not your fault." Sam reached over the table and touched his arm. When Danny looked up at her, she smiled. "I'm not mad at you."

"As long as you don't get too close, I'm okay," Danny said with a half-smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Tucker snorted. "I've got to sit next to her all the time now? But she's," he shuddered dramatically, dropping his voice to a stage whisper, "a _vegetarian." _His words got their desired effect; both of his friends grinned and Danny even chuckled softly. Smiling to make sure that they got that he was joking, he continued, "That might be a deal breaker, my friend."

Sam reached over and stole a few of his fries in retaliation. "Breaking news, Tech-boy: fries are potatoes, and potatoes are a _vegetable_."

"Yes, but the ones from the Nasty Burger are fried in greasy, genetically-altered, comes-from-a-processing-plant _animal_ fat."

The Goth hesitated with one of his fries halfway to her mouth. With a sigh, she dropped the fries back onto his tray. "Now I'm going to have to look that up… thanks," she muttered darkly.

"So," Tucker said after a moment of silence, "back to my original question. Aren't you grounded?"

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Danny sighed and settled back against the hard chair, running his fingers through his hair as he tried to decide how to answer. He hadn't really wanted to tell them too much – he didn't want to scare them away – but he needed to tell _someone_. It was all too obvious that he wasn't going to be able to handle this all on his own. So, taking a deep breath, he decided to just go for it. "My parents went one of their ghost hunting things today and dragged me along since I was grounded."

"Why _did_ you get grounded?" Tucker asked. "I can't remember the last time you were grounded."

Danny shook his head sourly. "I told them I turned on their stupid portal and they got mad at me for being in the lab. I _think_ I'm actually grounded because _you_ were in the lab too…" he shrugged. "But then I tried to tell my mom that I was a ghost and she ended up just plain being mad at me."

"You told her you were a ghost?" Sam whispered, blinking in surprise.

"She didn't believe me," Danny said. Something drifted across the edge of his vision and he flinched, turning towards the counter. Seeing nothing, he turned back to his friends and suddenly the ghost was back, hovering in the corner of his eye. It was Sam's ghost fox, sitting on top the pick-up counter, waiting for him to leave his friend alone. _Go away, she's mine. _Danny bit back a growl as one of his friends spoke.

"See any ghosts with your parents?" the voice asked distantly, almost like his friend was underwater.

Blinking, suddenly realizing that he'd dropped into 'dead' mode, Danny pushed himself back fully into the human world and ignored the stupid fox – it was far enough away and weak enough to not brush against his nerves too badly. Focusing closely on his friends, he let out a slow breath. "Two," he admitted, his stomach twisting at the thought of who he'd met. "Well, maybe one and a half."

Sam's face dissolved into confusion, but Tucker sat up a little straighter. "Someone like you?" he breathed.

Danny silently nodded, rubbing at the goose bumps that had appeared on his arms. The simple memory of Plasmius caused all of his nerves to fire. The man was so _wrong_… his entire being had seemed to fizzle against the fabric of reality, trying to bend it into being something that shouldn't – _couldn't_ – exist. _Am I like that too?_

"This is great!" Sam said. "Maybe they can help-"

"This _isn't_ great," Danny interrupted. His eyes were burning and he was having a tough time deciding if he was angry or scared. He knew that he was 'rollercoastering' again with his emotions, flipping from one to the other too fast for a normal human, but he couldn't help it. Everything was just moving too quickly. Simply _thinking _about Plasmius's offer made him tense. "You weren't there; you didn't feel what it was like to be around him. He was scary and wrong and it felt like…"

"Like he was after you," Tucker finished softly. "Like he's bringing the end of the world and you're the only one left to see it."

Danny looked up at him, feeling like he'd been punched as he met Tucker's eyes. "That's what I feel like, isn't it?" he whispered.

Tucker's mouth tightened, but he quietly nodded.

_I _am_ just like him…_ Danny closed his eyes and swallowed heavily. "And… and he said some things."

"Things?"

"Things," Danny whispered, crossing his arms uneasily over his chest. "Like the fact that I'm _not_ human. Like the fact that everyone's afraid of me. Like the fact that I don't fit in anymore…"

"You fit in just fine," Sam said.

Danny's eyes popped open and he stared at her for a long moment. "What world have you been in?! No, I don't fit in. Even _Dash_ has said something – _Dash!_ – and I don't think I've gone a single _hour_ without scaring you guys."

"Danny…" Sam started, but Danny shook his head fiercely.

"I don't want to _be that!_" he snapped, then ground his teeth for a moment, trying to reign in his emotions. Everything seemed to be a little too fresh, too loud, too bright… too everything. What he wanted more than everything was for something to go back to normal just for a few minutes. No ghosts, no strange ghost powers, no… Everything was just too confusing. "I want to be _normal_, Sam," he whispered. "I want to stop flipping from happy to angry in a split second. I want to stop seeing ghosts. I want…"

She gazed at him for a moment after he trailed off. "I'm not sure if that's possible, Danny."

"The man in the woods said he could help," Danny breathed. He looked up at her. "I _want_ help," he confessed softly. "Sam… I don't think I can do this by myself."

"Danny," Sam said softly, reaching out to grab Danny's hand. "You're missing one simple fact: you're not alone." Her amethyst eyes were shining in the harsh Nasty Burger lights. "Danny, we're a _team_."

Danny opened his mouth to say something, but his cell phone chose that minute to go off. He flinched at the harsh tone, quickly digging it out of his pocket and flipping it open without checking the caller ID first.

"_Daniel Fenton, where in the world are you?_" his mother's voice demanded.

--In _real life_ sometimes pieces just fall into place.

(end chapter 9)


	11. Good Luck Strikes Now and Then

**Real Life**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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Chapter 10

In Which Good Luck Strikes Now and Then

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Danny dropped onto the front steps of his house, staring vacantly towards the short driveway. On the phone, his mother had sounded like she was ready to fillet him alive - not a sound that Danny was used to hearing from her. He couldn't really blame her; he _had_ gone into the lab, gotten grounded, and then left his parents in the woods without telling them where he'd gone.

"_You will be at home, waiting on the front steps, explanation in hand when we get home_," his mother had demanded not fifteen minutes earlier, "o_r you will learn the true meaning of the word 'filicide'."_

Sam, after he had hung up the phone, had helpfully supplied a definition for the word - the killing of a child by a parent. Danny figured his mother's meaning had come through loud and clear without Sam's added input and he hadn't waited more than a moment or two before heading home, Sam and Tucker in tow. The two had since left him and headed to their own homes, leaving Danny to face his parents' wrath on his own.

"I hate this," he muttered, propping up his chin on his hand, trying to figure out how to get out of this _without_ being killed. In all honesty, he'd run away from his parents and hadn't thought twice about it - being near them had been too much for him to handle at the time. _Everything_ felt like it was too much to handle; the accident, the ghosts, these strange new abilities, Dash, school… it all sort of smeared together into a nauseating blend of life.

Pushing the thoughts ruthlessly from his mind and reaching over to pick up a stick, he tapped it against his leg as he tried to keep himself from thinking about everything. He needed to create some sort of story to tell his parents when they showed up. Although he'd never been good at lying, his oblivious parents knew him well enough to usually pick up on a lie. The one thing he had going for him right now was the fact that his mother _wanted_ a lie. For some reason, she refused to listen to the truth.

"You know," he said softly, peeling off layers of bark and addressing the stick like it could answer, "I haven't really tried talking to Dad yet. Maybe he'd believe me."

The stick was silent. For a moment, Danny pictured it screaming in terror and pain as he slowly stripped it of bark, tearing little pieces off in a sort of stick-torture. Perhaps the other sticks would come to its rescue.

Suddenly his hand drained of color and the stick dropped to the ground. Danny scowled and shook his hand, displacing the odd tingle of intangibility. "Don't think you get out of this that easily," he murmured to the stick. "And I'm officially going off the deep end."

Reaching down to pick up the stick again, something odd drifted across the edge of his vision. Danny looked up. When nothing was there, he hesitated, studying the empty bit of grass and dying plants, almost sure that he'd really seen something. "Ghost?" He licked his lips, looking around, trying to catch the odd glimmer in the corner of his eye. Nothing.

But he was positive something was there. His nose was tingling and his breath felt cold in his lungs, but he wasn't losing control, he wasn't slipping into his ghost side. "Why is it only sometimes?" he whispered, frustrated as his eyes drifted slowly across the driveway, 'catching' on one spot. There was nothing different about this one spot - it was just more cracked tar - but Danny found his eyes drawn to it over and over. It finally clicked in his head: the ghost was _there_. He knew it, even though he couldn't see anything.

He leaned forwards, picked up the stick like it could actually be some kind of weapon, and focused on the spot in the air. Something shimmered faintly and Danny grinned, continuing to stare at the spot. Slowly, ever so slowly, the ghost came into view, the human world fading away into blurs of grays, blacks, greens, and blues. "There you are," he breathed, gazing at the ghost dog.

The puppy wagged its rotting tail, tongue lolling out of its mouth, and _barked_. It wasn't really a bark - it sounded more like a growling, screaming sound a demonic dog would make - but it was a definite sharp dog-like sound. Danny blinked at it for a moment, watching in trepidation as the puppy started towards him, tail wagging furiously, glowing eyes fixed on him. When the dog reached the blurry steps, Danny pulled his legs up and stared at the dead dog. "Go away."

It _barked_ again, putting its head down on its front legs and sticking its wagging tail high in the air. The tags on its spiky collar glittered in some sort of ghostly light as the whole puppy's body shook with its tail wagging efforts.

"Leave me alone," Danny ordered, raising the stick to poke at the ghost. The dog's eyes traced the stick's movements perfectly, _barking_ and prancing a little as its tail wagged furiously. Danny stared at the dog, glanced towards his raised stick, and shook his head. "Stupid ghost... dog..."

He raised his hand over his head and launched the stick into the street. The ghost instantly tore after it, uncaring when a large red shape (probably a van, based on its size) ran right through it. The puppy pawed at the blurred stick lying in the middle of the street as Danny watched, still shaking his head sourly.

Blinking a few times, the ghost world drained away, leaving Danny staring at an empty street with his stick lying in the middle. He ran his hand through his hair and let it fall to the back of his neck, rubbing at the tensed muscles there. "It should bother me that _that _really didn't bother me." After everything else he'd been through lately, everything else on his mind, playing fetch with a dead puppy didn't add up to much.

By the time his parents' van pulled into the driveway, Danny still hadn't come up with an acceptable story about how he'd gotten home and why he'd left. He just wanted - for once - to tell them the truth and have them believe him. As his parents climbed out of the van and walked up to him, their expressions dark, Danny braced himself for the worst. If he got out of this with less than three months of the world's strictest grounding, he was never going to do anything wrong ever again.

"Daniel James Fenton…" his mother seethed. "I don't even know what to say." She was silent for a moment, her eyes closed, her whole body quivering in a way that slightly reminded Danny of the pent-up energy in the ghost puppy. "How did you get home?"

"I flew," he answered steadily. There was no way in the world his mother would believe him, but he figured it was worth a try. His father arched an eyebrow and actually seemed to be considering what Danny had said, but Maddie's eyes narrowed, her mouth tightening. Danny flinched, quietly realizing that whatever punishment his mother had in mind had suddenly doubled. Telling the truth to her was simply digging his whole deeper and deeper.

"Don't lie to me Danny; how did you get home?"

He sighed and gave up, dropping his gaze to their shoes and offering up the first somewhat-plausible lie that came to his head. He didn't want to be grounded until he left for college. "I hitchhiked," he muttered. "One of my friends from school drove by and offered me a ride home."

She put her hands on her hips. "Do you have any idea how worried we… Are you okay?"

Blinking, Danny glanced up at her sudden change in tone. She'd gone from furious to concerned in a matter of a few words. "I'm fine," he lied, looking away from her.

Kneeling down next to him, Maddie put a finger under his chin and forced him to look at her. "Sweetie, you look like you're two seconds away from bursting into tears. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Danny whispered, knowing that she wouldn't ever accept what he was telling her. It struck him, in an odd moment of irony, that she probably wasn't listening to him because she loved him too much - she refused to think that anything bad could have happened to him. But he needed to tell her something, so he fished through his mind. "I just… wanted to come home." When his mother cocked an eyebrow, obviously wanting more, he offered her a weak grin and tried for something at least _close_ to the truth. "I saw something up in the woods and I just didn't want to be there anymore."

"Did you see the ghost?" Jack said excitedly, kneeling down next to his wife with a grin. "We got all sorts of readings – they went off the chart! – but we didn't get anything on the cameras…"

"Jack," Maddie scolded, "not now." She glanced back at Danny with a worried look on her face. "You know you can talk to me if you ever need to, right sweetheart?"

Danny arched an eyebrow, weighing what he was about to say for a moment. _One more try... _"I have ghost powers?"

With a soft laugh, his mother rolled her eyes and got to her feet. "You should have told us you were going to leave, Danny."

"I know," Danny muttered, watching as his mom unlocked the front door. "I'm sorry. I didn't really think about it." A little surprised that he hadn't gotten in trouble for leaving his parents in the woods, Danny got to his feet and followed his mother into the house. He thought about asking her why she wasn't locking him in a closet or something, but figured that he was pressing his luck as it was. For the first time all week, something was going his way.

"You're still grounded." Maddie grabbed the box Jack had hauled to the house and handed it to him. "Carry this downstairs for me before I change my mind about grounding you until you're eighteen."

Danny grabbed the box and lugged it downstairs, hoping desperately that this momentary spike of good luck would hold out long enough that he wouldn't have to hear the _long_ version of what his parents had found during their ghost hunting trip.

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"I'm not going," Sam said darkly, crossing her arms and glaring at her mother. This wasn't where she wanted to be right now; her mind was so busy with other thoughts that she wanted to just go to bed. "This is _your_ stupid party and I don't want to go."

"It's not a party," Pamela answered, smoothing her hands over the purple dress she'd finally deemed was acceptable to wear to the party and studying her makeup in the mirror. "It's a _convention_, dear. There are a lot of…"

"Watch me care," Sam muttered. Why her mother had suddenly gotten it into her mind that Sam should have to go to the boring _convention_ was beyond her. Last she'd heard, only her parents had been planning on attending.

Pamela arched an eyebrow and glanced over at her daughter. "There's a new dress lying on your bed. Please go put it on."

"Why?!"

"Because I'm your mother and I'm asking you to. You've been moping around for a whole week now and it's time you snapped out of it." The elder Manson leaned close the mirror and touched her lips with her fingertips. "I don't know what's gotten into you lately, Samantha."

Sam bristled, trying to hide the pure shock at the fact that her mother had paid enough attention to her to realize that something was wrong. For a second – just for a second – she contemplated telling her mother what was wrong. If nothing else, the woman _did _seem to know how to fix any problem on Earth… or, if she didn't, she'd know someone who did. The feeling passed quickly, however. "I'm fine. I just don't want to go to a party tonight."

"I'm sure there will be boys your age there. Maybe you can-"

"_MOM!"_

Pamela smiled to herself as her daughter stormed from the room. "We're leaving in a half-hour, dear," she called.

Clomping up the stairs to her room, Sam stared down at the dress lying on her bed. "I don't want to go to the stupid party," she whispered, her arms crossed and her back tense, frustrated at how her mother couldn't even listen to her for _two seconds_. "Not today. I can't take any of my parents' idiotic 'social demands'."

She dropped onto her bed and buried her head in her arms. The convention was simply the straw that broke the camel's back – or, in this case, Sam's ability to think straight. After everything she'd learned, everything she'd been through, there wasn't a force in the universe powerful enough to make her get out of her bed. All she planned on doing was curling up under the covers, burying her head, and forgetting everything for awhile.

It wasn't possible, however. Her mind refused to shut up, replaying what she'd learned over and over. The fact that Danny was feeding off of her aura wasn't so bad; the idea that he was admitting that he liked how it felt shook her. He'd said repeatedly that he couldn't help it and that, if he had his way, he wouldn't be able to feel her aura at all… but there was still the fact that he enjoyed it. That he had all of these ghost instincts and desires and feelings and there wasn't much he could do about them. That he had almost no control over what was happening. That, all around her, there were ghosts feeding off of her just as Danny did... it all just added up to something Sam couldn't handle.

Her arms started to shake at the thought of how many ghosts there were around. Danny had tried to explain, had mentioned the 'annoying fox' more than once, and he had painted an impossibly dismal picture. There was a whole _world_ out there that she didn't know anything about.

Goth or no, lover of the paranormal or otherwise, the idea had completely freaked her out.

The worst part was the look in Danny's eyes, the way he had seemed to know that she was panicking, the way he had kept asking if she was okay… She'd always nodded and smiled, pushing the growing well of worry into the back of her mind and covering it up, but he'd seemed to know. When they'd finally split, Danny to his house and Tucker to his, Danny had stood at the corner and watched her walk away like a lost puppy that would never see its owner again.

It was almost like he knew that he'd pushed too much. She was still trying to deal with the fact that this was all her fault – the mere fact that Danny could do half of the things he'd explained about had already put a strain on her mind and had riddled her with guilt and nightmares. With the rest of it, all poured on top…

She pressed her hands to her mouth and curled in a small ball, her forehead pressed against her knees, her breathing ragged. _What have I done to him?_ She closed her eyes, picturing him standing at the corner as she walked away, looking like he'd never see her again. Knowing that she was going to run and not look back.

_Oh God, what have I done?_

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Maddie sank into one of the seats at the kitchen table later that afternoon, watching her husband fiddle with the recordings they'd gathered at the Grisbee's cabin. The large man glanced up at her and wiped a bit of fudge off of his fingers before he unplugged his headphones and turned on the speakers. "Listen to this, Mads," he said. _…cr rr rr ps ss ss… tr rr rr ss sc cc ct… pl as ss si us ss..._

"I don't hear anything," she said honestly. Her husband was a little obsessed over the EVPs they gathered and he often heard things on the tapes that nobody else ever managed to hear. In the past, he'd carted truckloads of 'proof' over to the local Ghost Hunting Society headquarters, only to be turned away because nobody else took his readings the same way he did. Besides, Maddie wasn't totally convinced that these electronic voice phenomena were real ghost 'voices' and not just people's brains interpreting random sounds into familiar patterns.

Jack scowled slightly at her, but nodded and turned his attention back to his computer. "You never hear anything," he grumbled, fiddling with some of the settings on his laptop. _…is ss ta ke… pa yf ff ff or rr rr… cr r rr ss ss ss…_

"I don't want to talk about ghosts right now," she said softly as her husband paused the recording to write something on his notebook. "Have you seen how oddly Danny's been acting this past week?"

"He's a teenager going through one of his moods, he'll be fine," Jack muttered, replaying a segment he'd already played. _…tr rr rr ss sc cc ct… ia aa am pl as ss sm iu ss ss…_ "Can you hear that?"

Maddie sighed and nodded. "I'm still worried about him, Jack. You saw him when we got home today – he looked like the world was ending. And he's been so stressed and jumpy. What if he's being bullied at school? He came home a few days ago with that bloody nose…"

_…cr rr ss ss ss… ww ww hh hr rr oo oo…_"He's just clumsy," Jack dismissed, never looking up from his computer. "I was always falling down when I was a teenager too; I'm sure there's nothing wrong." He leaned forwards, murmuring, "I've almost got this..." _ …ia aa am he ee re… ss ss ss sh rr rr ra cc cc tt… hh he ll ll pp…_

"This 'I'm a ghost' thing he's gotten into is bizarre too," she continued softly, slouching in her chair and staring at the ceiling. "What if it's some kind of cry for attention? Maybe we should spend some more time with him."

Jack grinned as he spliced together a few fragments of sound. "I am Plasmius, I am here, help!" he read off of his notebook. "There's no way the GHS will be able to deny _that_."

"_Jack_," Maddie admonished softly. "We need to talk about Danny, not listen to that garble."

"It's not _garble_," Jack pouted. "Listen to this." He pressed the play button. _…ia aa am pl as ss sm iu ss ss… ia aa am he ee re… hh he ll ll pp…_ When it ended, he looked over at her expectantly.

She shook her head and closed her eyes. "Jack…" she murmured. "Our son is more important than some random noises."

"Of course," he agreed instantly, but his eyes drifted back to his computer, obviously more interested in his ghost hunting than talking about his son.

Maddie glared at her oblivious husband for a moment, frustrated that he didn't seem to notice or care about their son, but finally rolled her eyes and started talking to herself. "Danny's been acting so weird ever since…" she trailed off. "I wonder if something happened in the lab that's causing this behavior? Maybe something happened that scared him…"

"This is front page of the GHS newsletter for sure," Jack whispered, his eyes glittering. _…cs ss ss rr rr tt… oo oo wa aa an oo oo lp…_

"Do you think I came down too hard on him?" she asked softly, watching Jack change a few more settings on his computer, knowing he wouldn't answer. "Do you think Danny's acting like this because he was scared? And I came down so hard on him when he tried to tell me about it…" She sighed. "That's when this 'ghost' thing started."

_… ss ss ss cc cc cc rr rr rs ss… hh he ll ll py oo oo ub ee ee eh uu um aa aa nn…_ "Did that say 'help you be human'?" Jack murmured, confused, and replayed the segment. …_hh he ll ll py oo oo ub ee ee eh uu um aa aa nn…_ His eyes widened in surprise. "What the…?"

Maddie leaned forwards are propped her chin on her crossed arms, watching her husband scribble on his notepad eagerly. "Maybe he needs to talk about it – but I want him to understand that he can't go down into the lab without us being there. It's dangerous."

_…ss ss rr rr ss ss tt... wh aa as ss th ep rr rr rr ic ee…_ "What's the price," Jack whispered, leaning closer to the speakers, his eyes wide.

"Maybe I should let him tell me his story; maybe that would help. What do you think, Jack?"

_…hh aa av ea aa aa ff ff am il ll ly… tr ss ss ss ss cc cc cc… ll ll ll ov em mm me ee ee… _

"_Jack_!" Maddie said, sitting up. She was about to ask her question again, wanting _some_ sort of input from her husband, but Jack beat her to the punch

"The ghosts are plotting ways to turn human!" he exclaimed, looking at her with wide eyes.

Maddie blinked at him for a long moment, then suddenly started to laugh at the odd statement. "The ghosts are plotting ways to turn human?" she managed between giggles. "Jack, listen to yourself."

"It's what they said," he answered with a bit of a pout.

As her giggles died away, Maddie shook her head, her worries about her son momentarily pushed from her mind. Jack was probably right; Danny was just being a teenager. "I love you, Jack."

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Sam scowled at anyone who dared come within a dozen feet of her, unhappily leaning in the corner of the large room she had claimed. Well-dressed people mingled and talked throughout the room and Sam caught glimpses of her parents every now and then. "I can't _believe_ I came," she muttered darkly.

She'd put up a good fight and had managed to withstand the brunt of her mother's stubborn insistence and her father's thinly-veiled threats, but when her grandmother had poked her head into the room and mentioned that Sam should go, the young Goth had caved. If one stupid _convention_ would make her parents get off her case and make her grandmother feel better, Sam would just have to stick it out.

No matter how much she wanted to go home.

Crossing her arms over the dress her mother had picked out, she tried to push thoughts of Danny and his ghostly revelations out of her mind. It failed rather miserably. Every time her eyes flickered across the room, she wondered how many ghosts she wasn't seeing, how many creatures were following their humans around like dead drug addicts, how many of the things were sitting at her feet and feeding off her. Her eyes skipped down to study the floor, seeing and feeling nothing, but knowing that made little difference. The ghosts, so Danny had explained, seemed to be attracted to strong emotions… and her emotions were certainly going strong tonight.

She took a deep breath and ran her hands over her arms. She couldn't exactly understand why the concept of so many ghosts in Amity Park was freaking her out like this. She _liked_ ghosts; she _was_ the resident ghost expert at the high school after all. The knowledge that the world was literally crawling with the remnants of life should be a _good_ thing.

Yet it wasn't. The idea that there were ghosts 'out there' was a lot different from the idea that there were ghosts 'right here'. Ghosts, demons, poltergeists… they were all very interesting until they directly started to intrude on one's life. Then, rather suddenly, they became a lot less interesting and a lot more scary.

And Danny was one of them. _And it's all my fault_.

_Samantha Elizabeth Manson_, she chided, _stop it._ _You're at a party. Let yourself be distracted for awhile. _Her gaze swung over the party-goers and picked out a particularly pink and putrid dress. _See that? You would normally be ridiculing the poor girl who chose to wear that. Come on, Sam. Forget about it for a few minutes._

Following the dress with her eyes, Sam tried to think of a comment to make. It had every bell and whistle from ruffles and bows to tulle and intricate lace details. It was a dress that, normally, would have kept her busy for nearly twenty minutes.

Today, all she could do was wonder what kind of ghost trailed behind a dress that ugly. It was pathetic, really. Sam was an expert ridiculer, born from years and years of practice, and she was failing utterly.

For a few more minutes she stood there, trying to push thoughts of ghosts out of her head, but she failed. Slumping a little, she closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the wall. "I shouldn't have come to this," she whispered. "I should have locked my door and snuck out the window."

It didn't take too long before all of her thoughts cemented into one: _I just want to go home._

"Good evening," came a smooth voice.

Sam opened her eyes to fix her darkest glare on the person that had chosen to invade her self-appointed bubble of misery and despondent panic, but faltered when she recognized the man from some of her parents' parties. "Mr. Masters."

The smile on the billionaire's face was picture perfect. "Samantha Manson, I believe. And hiding in the corner so well."

Sam felt a small flush jump to her cheeks at the soft critique, but pushed it down. "There aren't many other teenagers here, Mr. Masters. I feel a little out of place," she explained, a bit of a lie that she mentally excused herself for.

"Don't we all," the man murmured distractedly.

Sam glanced around the room and quietly hoped that the man would leave her alone so she could go back to her own thoughts. He had a vaguely creepy vibe to him, especially the way his eyes glinted in the lights. "What are you doing in Amity Park?" she asked after a long moment of silence, resigned to at least _try_ to be polite.

He blinked and focused on her, seeming to dissect her with his icy blue eyes. "I was trying to acquire Axion Labs. Many of my businesses use parts that are designed there and just out-right purchasing the place would have saved me quite a bit in the long run."

"Didn't get it?"

"Regrettably, no," he said softly. "My mind isn't quite on acquisitions at the moment. The timing of the meeting was unfortunate. I will have to place another bid at some future point."

Sam made a disappointed sound and looked away, trying to find an excuse to leave. She'd fulfilled her social obligation towards small talk (at least, she hoped so), and now she just needed a reason to go somewhere else.

"The reason I came over here," Mr. Masters said suddenly, "is that I was wondering if I could ask you a question."

Her eyes tracked back to him, suddenly wary. The subtle aura around the multi-billionaire made all of her hair stand on end. "I'm not sure I'd be able to answer very well," she said slowly, suddenly feeling like the man's presence was familiar and struggling to place it. _Where have I felt this before?_

"I'm sure you'll do fine. Have you heard of a local restaurant… I believe it used to be called the 'Tasty Burger'?"

"The Nasty Burger?" Sam asked, her thoughts derailing for a moment in surprise. _Why is Mr. Masters asking about a fast food place? _"What about it?"

"I was just wondering if you'd ever been to the establishment. Someone recommended the place to me and I was looking for a second opinion."

Although Sam was almost positive the man was lying to her, she decided to answer honestly in the hopes that the man would leave her alone. She nodded as she edged a few feet farther from him. "I eat there with my friends all the time. The salads are really good."

"Excellent." Mr. Master's blue eyes burned into hers, an odd red light seeming to glitter in their depths. The weird feeling in the air around the man became much more prominent, goosebumps racing over Sam's arms. "I must say, Samantha, that you've got very unique eyes."

"Um…" Sam took another small step backwards, sliding along the wall.

The man blinked and his smile froze. "I must be going," he said abruptly, looking at his watch. "I told my chauffeur to pick me almost five minutes ago. Thank you, dear." Turning on his heel, the man made a bee-line for the main doors.

Sam stared in the direction the man had disappeared, completely off balance from the man's sudden departure. "That was…" She shook her head, unable to find the words to describe how she was feeling, and headed out onto the floor to find her parents. For some odd reason, she felt like standing next to her mother for awhile.

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Sunday dawned bright and clear for the vast majority of Amity Park – but not for one Daniel Fenton. He was staring bleary-eyed at his wall, desperately wishing for some sleep. He'd fallen through his bed a grand total of eight times the night before – three times making a crash landing in the living room – and hadn't gotten more than a few minutes of sleep. The rising of the sun only signaled the start of the next piece of torture that was awaiting him.

The whole fiasco had culminated around midnight when he'd given up sleep as a lost cause and had ended up watching _Animal Planet_. There had been some episode showing about how to train dogs and one line had stuck in his head. _How do you train a dog to not bark? By training him to bark on command._

Danny's sleep-addled brain had easily connected training dogs to bark with keeping his body from going intangible in the middle of the night. If he wanted to learn how to stop falling through floors, he needed to learn how to do it on purpose.

He reached out and grabbed the pencil that was lying on the ground in front of him, weighing it on his hand. "Intangible," he muttered, trying to remember how it had felt. The strange not-quite-realness, unable to feel anything, the strange colorlessness… He stared at the chewed-on pencil, focused on it as hard as he could.

Nothing. This was going on the fifth hour of trying to turn his hand intangible and it hadn't _ever_ worked. In a fit of frustration, he tossed the pencil across the room and watched it join the pile of other things he'd tried to phase through.

"This is _insane_," he said darkly. "What can't I do this?"

"Do what?" his sister's voice said from the doorway.

Danny twisted around to glare at her, uncaring that he was using his sister as a target for his frustration. "Nothing. Go away."

"Stop throwing things at my wall," Jazz said, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

"Yes. Now go away." He got up and collected a few of the pencils and pens, carrying them back across the room and slumping back into his original spot. "I'm busy."

"Item forty-two on the list of freaky," she muttered as she vanished down the hallway.

Danny rolled his eyes and ignored her. "I need to get this," he whispered. "If I don't get _some_ kind of control over this I'm going to go mental." _If I haven't already,_ he added silently. Rolling a pen back and forth on his hand, he focused on his hand. "Intangible."

When nothing happened, he closed his eyes and tried a different tactic. _My hand isn't really there. None of me is. I'm just a mirage, just an image… the pen can't touch me. It'll fall right through my hand because all I am is light and energy._ He concentrated on that thought for as long as he could, trying to ignore a strange tingling in his spine. He didn't want to stop and scratch an itch until he got this. _I'm nothing. I'm not really here_.

A small smile crept onto his lips as the simple thought germinated and grew. _Nothing's here, actually. I've got it backwards. I'm here but everything else is gone. There is no pen, there are no walls. I could get up and walk straight through them because they're not really there. _

He was so caught up in convincing himself that he was the only thing in the entire world that he almost missed the faint sound of the pen hitting the floor. His eyes jerked open at the sound and he stared at the pen lying on the carpet. "I did it," he whispered, stunned. Then his eyes tracked to his hand…

"Where's my hand?" He flipped his hand over, feeling the sensation but seeing nothing. As he followed his invisible arm up towards his body, then down to where his body should have been sitting, Danny felt his stomach do an odd little lurch. He was completely invisible. "Uh…"

Reaching down with his hand, he picked up the pen and watched it float in mid-air for a moment, seemingly held up by nothing. He dropped the pen again, watching it bounce once on the carpet, unable to decide how he felt about this invisible thing. Shuffling it into his 'think about it later' part of his mind, he closed his eyes and tried to figure out how he was going to get back to his usual visible state.

_I'm here – I'm not nothing, I'm not invisible. I'm a human and I'll be able to see my hand when I open my eyes._ He peeked… nothing. _Come on… not invisible anymore_.

"Danny?"

He flinched, opening his eyes to stare out into the hallway. His father was standing there, looking around his room at the messy bed and the pile of pens and pencils lying on the ground. Danny froze, staying perfectly silent, his eyes wide.

Jack backtracked into the hallway. "Jazz! I thought you said Danny was in his room," he bellowed.

His sister, speaking at a more normal level from not far down the hallway, answered, "He was."

"Where is he now?"

"I'm not his keeper," Jazz muttered as she walked past the doorway. "Check the bathroom maybe."

"Do you want to help me with-" their father started, but Jazz held up a hand.

"I'm going to the library today."

When his father and sister had vacated his doorway, Danny slowly got up and silently closed the door to his bedroom, his invisible hand missing the doorknob on the first try. "Not a fan of this," he breathed. He navigated his way back across his room, realizing it was a lot harder to walk when invisible, and stared at his missing reflection in the mirror. "Visible," he whispered. "I want to be visible."

He shimmered back into view, his eyes flickering with fading green lights. Leaning forwards and running a hand through his hair, he could already tell it was going to be a _very_ long day. When he grabbed some clothes and headed to the bathroom, he never noticed his mother, leaning against a doorjamb at the end of the hallway, watching him closely.

In _real life_, good luck strikes now and then.

(end chapter 10)


	12. Books Don't Hold All the Answers

**Real Life  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

_--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--_

Chapter 11

In Which Books Don't Hold All the Answers

_--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--_

The librarian gave Tucker an odd look when he strolled into the library early Sunday morning with his backpack hanging off one shoulder. The large building was normally a graveyard until noon – having someone there before the sun had fully risen in the sky was new. Humming to himself, confident in the knowledge that nobody in the lifeless library cared how much noise he made, Tucker nodded once to the librarian and headed towards the back of the library.

Walking past the rows of books, Tucker wrinkled his nose and sighed. He generally had more confidence in internet resources than library books despite the fact that 'anyone' could put things on the internet. But yesterday, after he'd split up with Sam and Danny, he'd spent hours searching the web for any information that would help Danny… and he'd come up with precisely _nothing_. Even after he expanded his definition of 'vaguely credible websites', he had been left empty-handed. The local library, with its bizarre collection of old ghost books, was his last hope.

The Amity Park Library was ancient and cramped and smelly and littered with small rooms. One of the rooms in the far corner of the building overflowed with books on the supernatural. Tucker grinned a little as he turned the last corner and the room came into sight, figuring that living in one of the world's most haunted towns was finally going to come in handy.

"There has to be _something_ useful here," he murmured as he stepped into the room and looked around. "It's not possible that there's _nothing_ out there."

Dropping his backpack on the small table, he walked over to a shelf and scanned some of the titles. The Field Guide to Ghosts and Other Apparitions seemed interesting, but when he flipped through the book, it seemed to be nothing more than stories of people meeting ghosts. He wrinkled his nose, classified it as 'not going to be helpful', and set it back on the shelf.

His fingers trailed over the shelves for several minutes as he wandered around the room, his heart sinking when nothing jumped out. He knew that he was secretly hoping for a title along the lines of What to Do When Your Friend Turns into a Ghost even though he was positive that Danny's situation wasn't likely to be in a book. The fact that none of the books were screaming 'helpful' in bright neon letters wasn't a surprise – but it was still depressing.

"Ghosts," he whispered, prying a book (How to Communicate with Spirits) out from the tightly packed shelves and heading back towards the table, "there's got to be something helpful somewhere." Dropping into a seat, he flipped to the first page and started to read.

_--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--~--_

"Dad?" Danny stepped off the stairs and glanced around his parents' basement laboratory. The aluminum foil-covered walls glittered in the harsh lights and the place looked like a tornado had gone through. Along one of the walls, the portal into the realm of the dead was glowing softly.

Shivering a little, Danny looked around for his father. He wasn't extremely happy about having to be back in the lab; there was something about the portal that made the hair on his neck stand on end. Now that the portal was turned on and humming softly in the background, the basement had a creepy, haunted feel.

"Danny!"

Danny had to squint to see the large figure in the corner, hidden behind a collection of junk-covered shelves. His heart dropping and a sigh slipping out from between his teeth at the knowledge that he was going to be stuck in the basement 'helping' his father for the conceivable future, Danny made his way across his parents' lab, giving the portal a wide berth. "Hey, Dad," he said sourly when the cluttered table his father was sitting at came into view.

It was the ghost hunting table – a place that had been created years earlier in a vain attempt to keep his parents' hobby from taking over the entire basement. A thick layer of random papers covered the tabletop, piles of papers were stacked in random places, photographs of blurred things were taped to the wall, and a teetering pile of books had been relegated to one of the back corners. His father's laptop was perched in the middle of the mess, quietly waiting for something to do.

"Grab a chair," his father said, fiddling with a small camera. A happy grin flashed across his face and Danny couldn't help himself from echoing back a smile. "I want you to listen to something quick."

Settling onto the stool, Danny waited while his father set down the camera and reached for his laptop. Something cold brushed against the back of his neck and Danny flinched, glancing over his shoulder, his eyes drawn almost irresistibly to where the portal waited. The greenish mist of the portal shimmered and threaded hypnotically, keeping Danny's gaze a lot longer than he'd intended.

His eyes narrowed a little as he studied the portal. It was _odd _– there was no other word for it. The portal touched every one of his senses: it had a smell and a taste and a feel and even a _sound_. It was humming softly, vibrating through the room like some sort of homing signal. "_…Danny…" _Danny blinked and drew back, startled at the sound of his whispered name, but he didn't look away from the portal. Instead, his gaze searched the emptiness of the mists for the creature that had said his name.

A faint hand brushed against the surface of the portal from the other side. "_…What's your full name, child?…" _The voice was soft, slipped through the room like a sigh, and sounded like it was coming from a million miles away. "…_All ghosts have names. Tell me yours…"_

Danny found his mouth opening, his brain automatically set to answer the question, but something inside of him rebelled against it. _I'm not going to tell a disembodied hand my name!_

"_…Please, Danny?..."_

"No," Danny said sourly, crossing his arms and glaring at the portal.

"What?"

Danny flinched at the sound of his father's voice, having completely forgotten that the large man was sitting next to him. With one last glance at the portal to make sure that the ghost was safely on _that_ side, Danny twisted around to look up at his dad, knowing that Jack wouldn't have heard the ghost's half of the conversation. "Nothing. I was just… thinking," he muttered as he reminded himself to try to ignore voices coming from the portal from now on. He wasn't sure how well it would work, but he was determined to try.

"_…Danny…"_

His father gazed at him in silence for a second, but then shrugged. "Listen to this – this is what we recorded out at the Grisbee's cabin." Grabbing the computer's mouse, Jack clicked and sound fizzled through the speakers, full of static. _…iaaaamplassssmiusss… yoooouuinnnnteressssssstmeeee… ghooooossssssstchiiiiiillllld…._

Danny's fingers clenched tightly around the edge of his stool as he listened to the creature's – _Plasmius's – _words on the tape, the ghost on the other side of the portal momentarily forgotten. "Th-that's…" He trailed off, his eyes wide, not knowing what to say.

…_whaaaaaaaataaaarrrrreyooooooouuu…_

Shivering at the sound of his own voice, Danny licked his lips at stared at his father, wondering what Jack was going to say. _Did he recognize my voice? Is that what this is all about? Did he finally realize I was telling Mom the truth?_ Danny's heart was beating rapidly in his chest as he waited for the axe to drop, trapped between wanting his father to know the truth and not wanting him to know, waiting for his father to accuse him of being a ghost and demanding an explanation.

Split-seconds stretched into eons as he waited. An unreadable expression was on his father's face. "You heard something, didn't you?"

Danny nodded, his fingers aching from their tight grip on the chair.

"Mads never does," Jack said, his face slipping into an easy smile. "I knew you'd hear it, though. You're a Fenton." He nudged Danny slightly, then turned back to his computer, murmuring softly to himself. "That was the normal recording – it's so full of random sounds and static that you can barely make out what the ghost is saying. _This_… this is what I wanted you to hear. I think I've found a filter that'll get rid of the background noises."

"Easier?" Danny breathed, slowly releasing his death grip on the stool, confused. _I heard the words just fine. _His forehead creased as he tried to figure out what his father was talking about. He'd been forced to listen to hundreds of his father's recordings over the past few years and none of them had been anywhere near that clear. All the rest of them had been nothing but odd sounds that _might_, in some universe, have been words.

"Yeah," Jack said distractedly. "That was just a normal EVP. This one should be better but don't," he pointed a finger at Danny for a moment, "get into the argument like Mads does that by changing the recordings we're ruining our findings. They 'enhance' photographs and videos all the time for crime scenes, I'm doing nothing different."

With a shrug, Danny just quietly watched his father click through the settings on the computer with a tongue stuck partway out of his mouth. '_That was just a normal EVP' he said… but it didn't sound like it. That's got to be the cleanest recording I've ever heard. So why doesn't Dad have every ghost hunter in the world on the phone by now?_ His stomach gave an odd little lurch. _Something's not right…_

"Ready?" Without waiting for an answer, Jack pressed the play button, a huge smile on his face.

The static was gone. Plasmius's words, complete with the echoing screaming and the slicking ooze on his voice, resounded through the basement. _…I am Plasmius. And you interest me quite a bit, ghost child…_

Danny shuddered, tensing for what he knew came next. _…What… What are you?..._ A cold finger slipped down his spine at the sound of his own recorded voice, reverberating with hollow shrieks of pain.

_…Playing twenty questions, are we?..._ Plasmius came back on, his smile obvious even without the words. _…I am a human created by an idiot in his indomitable que-…_

The sound abruptly shut off and Danny looked up at his father with wide eyes, not knowing what to say. There was a cold pit in his heart and his throat felt tight. _That's what I really sound like_, he thought desperately, horrified by the demonic sound of his own voice. _And Dad heard it… _

"It's that neat?" Jack grinned, his attention fixed on the computer screen. "You can really make out some of the words now. Look." He set down a piece of paper, his father's handwriting scrawled across it. "I spent hours yesterday, and this is what I got out of it."

"I am Plasmius. I am here. Help," Danny read softly, shaking his head in confusion. _But… but… that's not what I heard_. "I… I didn't…"

"There's a lot more than what I played. You have to listen to quite a bit of it to hear the next bit – but did you hear the 'I am Plasmius' part?" Jack looked up at him with an excited smile.

"Yes…" Danny said slowly, training his eyes down on his paper as the confusion finally melted away. _He didn't hear what I heard._ His mouth was dry as he finally realized that _he'd_ heard everything - an exact recording of what had gone on at the cabin the day before - but his father had only heard small bits of it. Jack must have heard nothing but a normal EVP reading.

He blinked at the paper a few times, then looked up at the computer that had played back his conversation from earlier. Millions of thoughts were crashing around in his head, but only one managed to worm its way out of his mouth. "EVPs are real," Danny whispered, a little stunned.

"_EXACTLY!_" Jack shouted.

Danny flinched at the sudden shout. _He actually recorded what I said as a ghost. That's… weird_. Unable to decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing, Danny stared down at the small notebook and waited for his father to mention what he had planned for the two of them to do that day.

_Something_ cool and wispy brushed against the back of his neck but Danny fiercely ignored it. Taking a deep breath, he set the notebook on the cluttered table. "So… what next?"

"Temperature readings," Jack said, grabbing a handful of papers and shoving them in Danny's direction. "You remember how to go through them?"

With a quiet nod, Danny took the papers and quietly started looking over the flowing numbers, determined to not look up at the portal no matter how loud the ghost called his name.

_"…Danny?…"_

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Tucker dropped his latest book, Communicating with Spirits, onto the table and buried his head in his arms with a groan. There was _nothing _helpful in any of the books he'd read so far! There was absolutely no information out there to help them figure out what was going on with Danny. The last book had been even less useful that usual.

To make it all the worse, based off what Danny had told them the previous night and Tucker's own encounter with the octopus ghost, many of the books were full of nothing but misinformation and bad theories. Taking a guess, Tucker would have to say that few (if any) of the authors of these books had ever seen an _actual_ ghost.

"This is so stupid," he muttered to himself. "There's nothing here and there isn't going to be."

He rested his chin on his arms and stared at the packed shelves of books. "How can all of these people write all of these books and none of them be _helpful_?" he complained sourly.

_You already know you're not going to find the answer to Danny's problem in one of these books_, Tucker's mind helpfully supplied. _So you should stop looking_.

"I can't give up though." Tucker's eyes trailed over the hundreds of books in the small room. "Danny's my friend."

_That doesn't change the fact that there's no answer in any of these books._

"Shut up," Tucker murmured. "There _has_ to be an answer out there."

His mind was quiet for a moment. _What was the question again?_

Tucker shook his head silently, grinding his teeth in frustration. "I have to find something," he whispered. "I have to try to help."

Although Tucker didn't really know what he was looking for anymore – he was positive that the rest of the books in the library wouldn't tell him anything he didn't already know – he couldn't bring himself to stop looking. He had this feeling in the pit of his stomach that there was _something _in the library he was going to find… he just didn't know where to start looking or what to look for.

Grabbing a new book, Tucker stared down at the cover for a long moment before opening it. The words swirled a little on the page. "There's something here. I know it."

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"…_Make a wish for me, child…"_

Danny's eyes narrowed and his teeth were clenched as he desperately ignored the voices coming from the portal. None of the ghosts had come through – Danny wasn't even sure if they could – but a number of them were obviously just on the other side, calling to him. Danny had the passing thought that he should just answer the ghost and wish for the spirits to leave him alone, but with his father there Danny didn't dare say anything.

Highlighting a number on the stack of temperature readings his father had given him, Danny wondered if he could talk his father into taking the stuff upstairs and doing this in the not-quite-as-haunted living room. A strange chill swept through him and he shivered, fighting the desire to rub his arms to get some warmth back in him.

"_…Danny? What's your name, Danny?…"_

Danny hissed softly under his breath, closing his eyes for a moment. Clenching his fingers tightly around the highlighter, he focused on staying calm and human. That strange feeling of anger was drifting through his mind and his mind kept muttering that the ghosts were too _close_. They needed to back off. He needed to _make_ them back off. He needed to _fight_-

"Danny," his father said hesitantly. Danny blinked and looked up, relieved to have some sort of distraction from the ghosts. Jack shifted uncomfortably, keeping his blue eyes on the computer screen. "Your mother wanted me to talk to you."

_"…Come here, child…"_

Trying to push the ghosts to the back of his mind, Danny waited for his father to say something more, his knuckles white around his highlighter. _Shut up, shut up, shut up! _"Yeah?" he asked, hoping to get Jack to continue.

"She's worried that you're getting bullied at school or something," Jack grumbled, fiddling with his camera. "You'd go tell her if you were, right?"

Danny stared at his father for a long moment, caught a little off-guard. He knew that his mom had been getting more concerned about Dash lately, but he hadn't realized it had gotten to the point where even his dad would mention it. "It's just normal teenager stuff," he muttered. "I can handle it."

Jack glanced up at him, obviously uncomfortable with the conversation. "You sure?"

With a nod, Danny looked back down at his temperature readings. _You wouldn't understand anyway_, he thought quietly. _It's not like you were ever bullied in school_. He scanned the list of numbers, silently highlighting a few and trying to figure out something else to say. It was easier to ignore the whispering portal when his dad was talking.

"I got roughed up in school when I was a kid, you know," Jack said after a minute.

Danny looked up, arching an eyebrow in disbelief. "Yeah, right."

"I was." The large man clicked through a few more of the pictures he'd taken before shrugging. "I was really clumsy and everyone under the sun knew I was harmless." A little smile appeared on his face and he shook his head. "There was this one girl – she wasn't even half my size – and she took my lunch money every day for _years_."

"What'd you do about it?"

"I grew out of it." Jack looked up at him and grinned. "Joined the football team for awhile."

Danny snorted, thinking over the fact that his main tormentor was the captain of the junior varsity team. "That's not really an option for me."

"You're a Fenton – you'll figure it all out."

Danny blinked at the pure confidence in his father's voice even though the man didn't look up at him. A small smile drifted onto his face. "Think so?"

"I know so." Jack said and finally set down his camera. "I also know that we need snacks. Men cannot work on a Sunday morning without snacks – there's a fair labor law about it somewhere, I'm sure." Standing and stretching, his father grinned at him. "I'll play gopher this time. What you want?"

"Popcorn?" Danny suggested, knowing that his father was going to grab a bar or two of his homemade fudge. Popcorn and fudge went well together.

Jack headed towards the stairs, but hesitated and turned back around for a moment. "Oh, and Danny?"

"Yeah, Dad?"

"About the ghost thing…" He stopped for a moment. "Your mother's worried…"

"I got it, Dad," Danny said, just loud enough for the man to hear. "I won't bring it up anymore."

Jack stood still for a few seconds and Danny felt his gaze on his back. He wondered if his father would press the issue and try to make him talk; he wondered if he'd allow himself to be talked into talking. But he heard his father simply turn around and head up the steps.

It wasn't until the top door clicked softly shut that Danny realized that he was completely alone in the lab for the first time since the accident. His neck prickled and his stomach clenched as he slowly set down his stack of papers and turned around to stare at the ghost portal.

_"…Danny. Come here, child…"_

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Tucker had given up on the books.

"Idiot, unhelpful library," Tucker muttered to himself, clicking through the list of websites on the computer with an uninterested look in his eyes. "Three hours… nothing to show for it." Shaking his head, Tucker selected one of the websites he hadn't yet visited and clicked on the link, half-heartedly scanning the page.

The truth was finally hitting home and Tucker was doing nothing but solidifying his earliest assessment of Danny's problems: it wasn't something they could fix on their own. With no information, no help, and no resources, Danny's ghost problem was very clearly over his head.

And not over his head by just a little, over his head by a _lot_. Apples to avalanches _a lot_.

All of the enthusiasm he'd had earlier about researching ghosts and single-handedly solving his best friend's problem had completely vanished. Flicking the scroll wheel on the mouse with his finger, Tucker propped his chin on his arm and gazed at the screen without really reading it.

"I don't know where to start," he whispered. "I don't know what to look for. I don't even know where to start looking for something to look for anymore."

His eyes traveled to the notebook that had been tossed next to the computer. Its pages held hours of notes and scribbled references to the paranormal and the supernatural, many things cross-referenced by several websites and books. He had quotes and thoughts written by the best and the brightest in the field of the paranormal. He'd worn out his favorite pen. And yet he had nothing.

"I should just go home," he muttered, but he didn't move. There was still something in his gut telling him he should stay, that there was something to find if only he would look in the right direction. The knowledge that if he could find the _one_ right clue he might be able to find out more about Danny haunted him and kept him in his seat, quietly clicking through websites.

Lost in his daze, Tucker didn't notice when another person finally entered the library, walked up behind him, and started to study the computer screen with a lot more interest than he was. When a hand dropped on his shoulder, Tucker flinched and jerked around. He'd forgotten that Sam was going to meet him here at noon - was it noon already? "Hi," he started, but Sam simply leaned over him and stole the mouse from his hand. "Hey!"

She opened a new internet window. "I figured it out," Sam whispered as she brushed his hands off the keyboard. "I met him last night and I couldn't get it, but now I have it."

Completely mystified, Tucker watched as she typed in two words: _Vlad Masters_.

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"Finally." Vlad settled deeper into the first-class seat of the plane and closed his eyes, determined to put Amity Park behind him once and for all. This stupid trip had been nothing but a failure – not only had he failed to acquire Axion Labs and save himself millions of dollars, but he also had gotten himself hopelessly entangled with that _boy_.

An unconscious smile crept onto his face as he thought about the child with the glowing green eyes. So powerful and full of potential, there was a million things Vlad could do to help the mysterious boy. And, undoubtedly, the younger hybrid would like the assistance; living life as creatures that were part ghost was a difficult and lonely task.

There was even a lead to the boy's identity now – his friend, Samantha Elizabeth Manson. The girl had eyes that were incredibly unique and impossible to miss. The instant he'd spotted her at the convention he'd known that he'd seen those eyes before. It hadn't taken more than a few moments to realize they'd been at the Nasty Burger with the boy, and it had taken even less time to ask around and get her name. The answers that she had given had only solidified the knowledge that the girl from the Nasty Burger and the girl at the convention had been one and the same…

Shaking his head, he dispelled the thoughts settling in his mind. He would admit to the fact that the boy had been interesting and that he could offer the boy help that nobody else would be able to give, but he was _not_ going to track down the boy like some obsessed ghost. He was human; he was not subject to doing whatever his ghost wanted to.

Setting a 'leave me alone' frown on his face, he opened his eyes and stared out the window at the passing clouds. _I'm going home and forget this whole thing ever happened_, he vowed softly. _Maybe track down the boy's name, send him a letter offering my help, then leave him alone and forget about him. Put the ball in his court and back off._

He sighed a little as he remembered the look in the boy's eyes when they'd met, the disgust that had twisted his young face when he'd realized what Vlad was. Vlad was pretty sure that the reaction had been partially fueled by surprise; it would have faded given some time. If only he could have reigned in Plasmius's desire to possess the boy, he probably could have talked the child into coming with him voluntarily. But Plasmius had gained the upper hand with that faintest wisp of that smell…

_Warm apple pies backing in the autumn, heaps of whipped cream ready to be placed on top, the sharp smell of the autumn days, walking to school with thin layers of ice crunching under your feet, the happy days of being together as a family._

He hadn't been near that enchanting scent since college, but the smell had been instantly recognizable and completely addicting. Even now he could still catch the remains of the enticing scent of his old crush and it pulled at him, trying to get him to get off the plane and run back to her. For so many years he'd purposefully distanced himself from her because his ghost side was just too strong around her and, even though he was allowing himself these few moments to revel in that old feeling of desire, he was going to _stay_ distanced.

"What a Hellish town," he murmured. "Everything I don't want in one small package."

Something flashed in the corner of his eye and Vlad turned his head a little, squinting and pulling a bit of his ghost to the front in order to see which ghost was following him. One of the vultures was sitting on the wing of the plane, its rotting feathers unruffled despite the fact that it was moving at several hundred miles an hour.

Vlad snarled a little, feeling his ghost side reach up inside of him and claw at his mind. A reddish gleam entered his eyes as the vulture turned to look at him. Their gazes met and Vlad's eyes flashed, an unspoken message passing between them. _Stay and watch. Report in later_.

For a moment, Vlad wondered if the vulture would fight the order – the ghosts were constantly struggling for dominance – but it simply bowed its head. Letting out a supernatural shriek that set everyone's nerves on end, the vulture vanished back towards Amity Park.

"What was that?" the woman seated behind him murmured. "Hope it wasn't an engine."

Vlad firmly pushed his ghost side away and crossed his arms, a little frustrated at himself. Telling the vulture to stay had _not_ been one of his better ideas and he was already regretting it. He'd have to now return to the town of the young ghost boy and the woman from his memories.

Despite his wishes and thoughts, Vlad knew that he wasn't done with that town just yet.

In _real life_, books don't hold all the answers.

(end chapter 11)


	13. The World Keeps Turning

**Real Life  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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(Chapter 12)

In Which the World Keeps Turning

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Jazz underlined a few words on her half-finished economics report, chewing on her lip and gazing blankly at the paper. She wasn't really reading them; her mind was busy elsewhere, like it had been all morning. Two hours of sitting at the library had accomplished about two paragraphs worth of work. "This is _pathetic_," she moaned, blinking and forcing herself to focus on the words. "Wildcat banks sprung up in the…" she read softly, her voice drifting off as she scanned the text.

It was only a few moments before she caught herself once again staring at the source of her distraction. Letting out a heavy breath and dropping her head onto her hands, Jazz fiercely ordered herself to ignore the red notebook sitting so quietly and innocently on the corner of the table. _I need to get this done!_

Her gaze went back to the blurry words on her report, only to find her mind drifting back to the notebook. "You're evil," she muttered darkly as she finally gave up, one hand reaching out to grab the offending notebook and slide it closer. "Five minutes, that's all you get. _ Then_, I'll finish my report."

Flipping the book open, a small frown appeared on her face as she paged through the notes she had taken. The first few pages were a 'dream diary' she'd once been assigned to do and the second bunch were the remains of a behavior project she'd done on the neighbor's dog. She skipped right over them, pausing on a page about halfway through the notebook. The top of the page read 'List of Freaky' in her own neat handwriting.

Her eyes skimmed over the forty-eight items she'd listed below the title. Each was a weird thing she'd seen her brother do over the past few days. While most of them could be passed off as normal, a few of them couldn't. The glowing eyes on her tape, the sudden fear of microwaves, his strange behavior at dinner that one night, the haunted look in his eyes…

The first day full of Danny's weirdness had been funny. The second day had been even funnier, to be honest. But when Jazz had noticed that her mother starting to worry about Danny's odd behavior, a switch had flipped in her head and suddenly it hadn't been quite as funny. Every time Danny did something strange, Jazz had gotten a little more confused and a little more determined to figure out what was going on.

It was like having half the pieces to a puzzle and not knowing what the picture was going to be when it was done. Jazz gritted her teeth as she scanned the page. Logic puzzles were more her thing. Logic puzzles gave you all the information you needed and you just needed to figure out how to use it correctly.

"What's wrong with him?" she murmured. "There's got to be some sort of connection to all of these things."

Minutes passed as she read over the list again and again, the five minutes she'd allocated to red notebook up before she was ready for it to be. She drummed her fingers on the page, her eyes distant and her mind off in its own little world. "I really need more information than this…"

"I dunno, Tucker."

Jazz blinked at the sound of Danny's best friend's voice, surprised to find two fourteen-year-olds at the library on a Sunday morning. She closed her notebook and looked over her shoulder, barely catching sight of Tucker's idiotic red hat over the top of a bookshelf as they walked past. Her mouth opened to call out to them, but then she hesitated. She _did_ need more information on Danny; perhaps her brother's two friends would spill something.

"Come on, Sam. You don't know anything for sure."

"But I _know it_," Sam said sharply. "They felt _exactly_ the same."

"Vlad Masters?" Tucker's voice was full of disbelief. "_The_ Vlad Masters? You can't be serious." There was a long pause, then a heavy sigh. "_Sam_. Think it through. Look at what Danny's going through and then look at Vlad Masters. Tycoon. Billionaire. One of the world's richest men and one of the nation's most eligible bachelors. How in the _world_ do you think…"

Jazz's forehead furrowed in confusion as she gazed in the direction of the two teenagers. "Vlad Masters?"she mouthed. _What does Vlad Masters have to do with Danny?_

"I don't know. But I know what I know."

"And it took you all night to figure out. Are you _sure_ that you're not misremembering? After all that time-"

"_Tucker_…"

"I just don't think we should tell him." What little Jazz could still see of Tucker's hat shook as he spoke, like the boy was shaking his head. "We don't know enough to be sure and Danny's got enough on his plate right now."

Sam's voice was distant by this point, the two vanishing behind several bookshelves on their way towards the main library doors. "But what if Vlad can help with the-"

"What if you're wrong?"

Jazz stared at the place where she'd last seen Tucker's hat, her head tipped to the side and her eyes narrowed. She ran her tongue over her teeth, tapping her pencil lightly on the table. After a long moment of hearing nothing more from Sam or Tucker, Jazz looked down at her red notebook and flipped it back open to her List of Freaky. At the top of the page, she jotted down Vlad Master's name and gazed at it in silence.

Quickly circling the name, she closed the book and stuffed it into her backpack. She picked up the rest of her supplies, cleaned up her table, and headed towards the door, her half-finished economics paper left unfinished for the moment. It wasn't due for another week and she had something more important she wanted to do. "Hi," she said, stepping up to the check out desk and handing over the book.

The librarian grinned at her, glancing down at the title. "Banking in the Nineteenth Century. Economics… now _that's_ a worthwhile pursuit. Not like everyone else that comes in here."

Jazz smiled, listening to the _beep_ of the librarian's machines. "What do you consider not worthwhile?"

"Those two that just left checked out an armload of books on _ghosts_, of all things."

"Ghosts?" Jazz repeated, her eyebrows rising in surprise. _Sam and Tucker… and ghost books?_

"I know. I had the same reaction." The librarian snorted in disbelief and handed Jazz her book. "They said they were doing a school paper, but I'm not sure I believe them. What teacher would waste time on something stupid like that?"

Jazz chuckled, but her heart wasn't behind it. "Yeah. Thanks."

"Have a nice rest of your weekend."

"You too," Jazz called over her shoulder as she pushed open the door. _Vlad Masters and books on ghosts? What does that have to do with Danny?_

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The quiet humming of the portal was like a hypnotist's voice, whispering through Danny's ears and dancing between his brain cells. It _called_ to him in many ways, making his body itch with the desire to get off his chair and walk up to the fluttering energy caught in the portal. Danny's feet twitched, his leg bounced, and his fingers tapped, desperate for a way to ignore the longing feeling in his body.

Blue eyes flickered over to the steps, wishing his father would hurry up with the snacks. It was taking forever for Jack to collect a simple bowl of popcorn. Time was stretching; every second felt like minutes. Surely he'd had been gone for hours by this point.

The hair on the back of Danny's neck stood on end when a cold chill slipped over him. He shivered uncontrollably, glancing quickly over his shoulder at the dimly glowing portal before focusing back on the pages he was supposed to be going over. The lists of numbers swam in his vision.

'…_Danny. Come here…'_ a ghost breathed, its voice barely audible over the quiet hum of the portal.

Danny's head shook fiercely, his eyes closing as he fought off the strange desire to get closer to the portal. His teeth clenched tightly and his fingers tightened their hold on the table. "No," he said sharply, his nervous anxiety twisting in unexplainable anger, leaving him fighting against the strange supernatural rage that was clawing its way into his chest. The desire to simply _force_ the ghosts to be quiet and leave him alone was bubbling through him and was taking all of his efforts to fight off.

'…_It's okay, child. I won't hurt you. Come here…'_

He'd had enough of this. With a quiet, distressed sound, Danny dropped the papers onto his father's desk, pushed himself off the stool, and headed for the steps almost at a run. He couldn't take any more. _Anything_ had to be better than this. He'd figure out some reason to not have to come down here again.

Danny bumped into one of the overfilled tables, sending some of the equipment cascading to the floor with a loud crash. Tripping, he scrambled back to his feet almost before his knees had hit the floor.

Something brushed against his ankle and he hesitated, looking back over his shoulder. Due to the how the tables were laid out, he had been forced to move closer to the portal than he had been before; its hypnotic swirls of green now filled his eyes.

'…_Danny…'_

His close proximity to the window into the afterlife smashed through whatever resistance Danny had managed to come up with. His vision blurred, iridescent emerald energy drifting into the irises of his eyes. He got to his feet, his heart pounding loudly in his ears and his breath rasping in his throat. _Finally_, his mind was whispering, reaching towards the portal.

He shook his head in one last show of defiance even as his foot slid forwards, picking its way through the scattered machines on the floor and heading towards the gleaming portal. Waves of energy crested out from the device, washing over him and sending thrills through his still-human body.

His other foot followed the first, followed by a few more steps, each bringing him closer to the portal. Still shaking his head but no longer knowing why he was, Danny made his way to the edge of the portal. One hand came out to trace over the cool surface of the afterlife, his fingers drifting out of their human reality in a crackling of silver energy and light.

'…_Come here…'_

A smile appeared on his face as he felt the bright band of light travel up his arm and caress his entire body. The heavy, warm human world fell away. The cold, infinite realm of the afterlife swirled and chased away what few human thoughts remained. It took less than a moment and Danny's ghost side reigned supreme.

Power was his. Green eyes gazed hungrily at the source of all that power – this rent in the universe where the energy from the ghost world could cascade through so easily – and he pressed his hand firmly against the swirling mists. What small barrier remained between the human world and the afterlife was thin and flimsy under his palm.

Shapes moved on the other side of the window and Danny growled, his glowing eyes narrowing at the sight of other ghosts too close to what was so obviously belonged to him. "Stay away," he snapped.

'…_Let me out…'_ one of the shadows howled. _'...Please!...'_

Danny snarled. His voice must have carried over the barrier because most of the vague shapes of the ghosts flinched and vanished. Only one stayed. It came closer, red eyes gleaming through the emerald mist. _'…Danny. Make a wish…'_ the female voice whispered, either unaware or uncaring about the furious gleam in Danny's eyes, the bangles on her arms clicking mesmerizingly. _'…I'll make your grandest dreams come true…'_

"No!" he growled. It was time to chase away the female ghost that was intruding on his territory – no more waiting and asking it to leave. _Finally, _his mind laughed as pure rage burned through him. He pulled eagerly at the energy screaming through the air, drawing it into him like a black hole. His fingers curled into claws, the sharp points digging into the thin barrier, and ran his tongue over teeth that were rapidly sharpening into fangs.

Amity Park belonged to him. Sam belonged to him. This house and all the humans in it belonged to him. This portal, and the power it was releasing, belonged to him. No ghost was going to get anywhere near any of those, not as long as he had any say in the matter. "_Mine_," he hissed as his hair started to smoke.

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Jack lumbered down the lab stairs with a smile on his face, the bowl of popcorn and plate of homemade fudge carefully held in his hands. He was really looking forwards to getting to spend the rest of the morning with his son, now that he'd gotten that 'conversation' over with.

It had really been pointless, in his opinion. Danny was just going through one of those phases that all boys went through at some point. He'd grow out of it. But when Mads got back from her shopping trip, he'd be able to say that he'd talked to Danny and she could stop worrying. She seemed to like worrying about strange things, for reasons Jack never was able to figure out. Perhaps with her mind off of their children for a few moments, she would be able to focus on their latest experiment: the Fenton Ghost Portal. That afternoon the two of them would finally be able to go over the readings that they had been collecting, start a few more of their tests…

He stepped off the bottom stair and shivered at a sudden wave of cold air. He glanced around, his eyes flickering over the empty shelves before landing on the glowing green of the portal. For just a split-second, he could have sworn he saw a figure standing in front of the mass of energy, but when he blinked it was gone.

"Danny?" he called, his breath fogging faintly in the air as he walked forwards enough to see the table and the empty chair. Standing still for a moment, he looked around in confusion, cold goosebumps running up and down his arms. "Where are you?"

There was no way his son could have gotten past him. The lab only had the one exit and Jack had been standing next to it the entire time. Setting the popcorn and the fudge down, Jack stared at his lab. A cold needle jabbed into his heart and Jack felt his stomach give a little flip. "Danny?"

The normally cheery room was shrouded in a foreboding feeling that swirled up from the ground and swept into his brain. One last sweep of the lab convinced Jack that the room was empty and he headed back towards the stairs. Something was wrong, and that knowledge chased every thought out of Jack's mind but one: he wanted to find his son.

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Energy cascaded through the small tears in the barrier caused by Danny's claws, dancing along his hand and vanishing into his body. His claws bit deeper and his body tensed. He _wanted _to fight; he _needed_ to fight. Every molecule in his body was screaming at him to chase away the ghosts on the other side of the portal. All he had to do was rip through this thing standing between him and the ghosts and he could fight them.

His teeth were clenched, his mind hovering just on the edge. It would take just the slightest bit of anything from the ghost just beyond his hand to tip him over. Danny's ghost side reveled in the feeling and completely enjoyed the possessive, territorial aggressiveness.

Danny didn't hear his father walk through the basement or call his name, but he did realize that Jack was down there. The faint scent of burnt electronics drifted into his nose and Danny glanced over his shoulder. He could barely make out the larger man's form – and he didn't really care to try, humans meant so little – but he could easily see the swirling eddies of Jack's emotions.

The pull of the portal was incredibly powerful however, dragging Danny's attention back to the barrier and the ghosts on the other side. The addition of the human nearby simply gave him another reason to keep ghosts from intruding on his territory. "Mine," he growled.

'…_Danny?...'_ the ghost on the other side whispered. It came close enough for Danny to make out its glowing red eyes. _'…Come, chase me, fight me, fly with me…'_

He would; he wanted nothing more than to force this intruder to leave his possessions alone. Except his hands wouldn't move. His claws remained where they were, lodged in the barrier, rather than ripping through the fabric of reality like he wanted them to.

_You'll let all the ghosts out if you chase this one_, a small piece of his mind screamed at him. The logic was completely lost on Danny. His ghost lived solely in the present – the idea of actions affecting his future made no sense. All he cared about was his territory and the things that belonged to him being protected right there and then. "Mine," he snarled, trying to force his arms to move.

His hands stayed where they were. _More ghosts to feed on Sam_, the tiny voice tried again, struggling to be heard over the screaming energy of the portal. _The ghost will get through and feed on Sam_.

"Sam is mine," he whispered, his body shuddering with the effort it was taking to hold himself in place. "Mine." But his voice had lost its growl, taking on more of a pleading tone. _Sam isn't mine. You can't own a person._

Danny's hands dropped away from the portal, the ten holes in the barrier leeching power into the human world. "Sam…" he breathed. His claws faded back into more human-looking fingers, his white hair settling down around his face. "Sam isn't mine?"

'…_Come fight me!...'_

"No…" he told the ghost, confused. He didn't really understand why he couldn't fight the intruder onto his territory, but for some reason he wouldn't. It would be bad… somehow. All he understood is that it wasn't what he should be doing. "But…"

He drifted a few feet away from the portal, staring at the seething energy. The hand that had been so furiously burned and scarred when he had turned the portal on came up to run through his hair, pausing to massage the back of his neck. "I…"

A swirling scent of electronics drifted to his nose again and Danny glanced up and over his shoulder, staring in the direction of the human. The burnt scent of worry curled through the fizzling emotions, making Danny's eyes narrow in puzzlement. A quiet switch flipped in Danny's mind and suddenly the source of that tantalizing smell wasn't simply a _thing, _it was a _person. _"Dad…?"

With that realization, Danny's human mind was instantly and firmly back in control. He froze, staring down at the hands he remembered curling into claws. They were back to normal – all hint of the claws having vanished – but they were starting to shake. "What…" he whispered, his eyes wide. Fury was long gone, confusion banished. Fear reigned. His gaze jerked up to the hypnotic swirls of the portal, the knowledge of what he had just about done searing into his mind. _I almost let the ghosts out!_

His eyes slammed shut a moment later. "I want to be human again I want to be human again I want to be human again," he said, his voice shaking. The all-too-familiar feeling of terror was bubbling up inside of him. His tongue touched his teeth, a flash of memory of his teeth lengthening into fangs burst into his mind, and his chanting picked up speed. "Iwanttobehumanagain, Iwanttobehumanagain… Oh please…"

Desperately searching through his mind for something, _anything_, Danny stumbled across the small bit of heavy warmth that was his human soul. He reached for it, grabbing onto it like it was the only thing keeping him alive, and allowed it to surround him.

With his eyes closed, he missed the bright flash of light that heralded his return to his human form. But he didn't miss the nearly foot-high drop to the ground, one of his ankles twisting painfully underneath him. He collapsed to the floor, his breath rasping in his unused lungs, the ache in his chest building to an almost unbearable level before his heart remembered how to beat.

He was still very much aware of the portal murmuring pleasantly only a few feet away, but the pull of the energy disintegrated to a much more bearable level. He sat still for a moment before turning to look back at the window to the afterlife. The swirling energy was so peaceful and calming… and it was still calling to him.

Danny couldn't tear his eyes away as his ghost side started to itch at the back of his mind once again. A small piece of his mind screamed that he'd already done this and that he had to get away from the portal, but Danny ignored it.

The portal was simply more interesting than the voice of logic.

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Jack hesitated when he walked past the kitchen table. He'd searched the entire house – the attic, all the bedrooms, the living room, he'd even checked in the hallway closet – and Danny was nowhere to be found. Despite his generally easy-going personality, Jack was starting to get worried about the fact that his son had vanished.

"He has to be somewhere," Jack grumbled, looking out the back window. His mind just couldn't figure out how Danny could have gotten out of the basement without him seeing. "Unless he's invisible."

That thought got a smile to appear on Jack's face, especially after all of Danny's stories about being a ghost. _That would be something, wouldn't it?_ he wondered softly. _Danny being able to be invisible._

A sound from the basement caught his attention and Jack turned around to stare at the door. "Or," he muttered with an arched eyebrow, "he's still in the lab and I just missed him…" Pushing away from the counter, he walked over the lab door and down the stairs, stepping around the corner and into the fluorescent-lit basement.

His eyes flickered over the chaotic disassemble of equipment in the lab before his eyes settled on the figure of his son, sitting on the floor in the middle of a mess of tumbled devices. His mouth opened to call to his son, pleased that he had located the boy before Maddie got home, but hesitated, his eyebrows furrowing.

Danny was pale under the green light from the portal, his wide eyes fixed on vague green glow and it looked like Danny was almost hypnotized. Jack watched, startled and confused, as Danny got to his feet and limped a step closer to the portal. "Danny."

The teenager whirled around at the sound of Jack's voice, his eyes holding the wild, emerald spark of the portal for a moment before it died away. He seemed frozen, staring across the room towards his father. "Dad," he said after a moment, licking his lips.

"What are you doing?" Jack asked, walking the rest of the way into the lab.

"I was…" Danny trailed off, his gaze dropping to the ground. "I tripped," he finally finished.

Jack glanced down at the equipment on the floor by Danny's feet, then at the way Danny was standing, clearly favoring one of his ankles. _You're just as clumsy as I was at your age_, Jack thought with a little bit of a sigh, dismissing the odd light that had been in Danny's eyes a moment earlier. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Danny limped forwards.

"You should go put some ice on that."

Danny nodded, brushing past Jack to head upstairs. Jack watched him go, his forehead wrinkling at how pale his son was and at the fact that his son seemed to be shaking. _Maybe I should go up with him, make sure he's okay…_ His nose wrinkled as he thought about it, stooping to pick up the equipment scattered across the floor and dump it back on the table.

_It's not nearly as cold and haunted as it was ten minutes ago_, he realized with a start as he dropped the last device onto the cluttered tabletop and turned to head upstairs. "I wonder what was causing that, anyways." His gaze trailed around the lab before stopping at the portal. The window into the afterlife glowed with a steady green light for him, his human eyes unable to make out the hypnotic swirls of emerald energy that had so entranced his son.

"Was it you?" he rumbled, walking up to it. The deep green seemed to stretch into infinity, the back of the shallow hole in the wall completely obscured by the neon glow. He reached out his hand and pushed it into the smoldering emerald light.

The barrier that had held his son's hand back was no barrier to Jack's completely human arm. He had no concept of the fact that there even _was _something that should have stopped him from putting his hand through. Being human, Jack had no hope of entering the world of the ghosts, even through a portal like this one. Had he kept moving his hand forwards, he would have simply hit the back of the hole in the wall before reaching some sort of paranormal dimension.

His hand tingled as he held it in the bath of energy, so daringly close to the realm of the afterlife but impossibly far away. Finally he drew his hand back, staring down at his fingers. They glowed faintly for a moment, releasing the tiny amounts of energy they had built up. He snorted and smiled, grinning at his invention.

_I'll go upstairs and check on Danny in a second._ Jack took a step to the side and studied the panel that measured the portal's energy output. It had spiked earlier, the amount of power surging through the small device making the reading bounce chaotically for a few minutes before settling back down to the steady thrum it was at now. Jack's eyebrow arched as he noted that the total energy output of the portal was almost a percentage point higher than it had been before.

"Wonder what happened," he muttered, glancing at his portal. His finger came up to tap the control panel. "Think it'll do that again?"

With nobody around to answer his question, Jack answered it for himself. "Of course it will. And the power will surge again."

He was quiet for a moment as he thought about it, then his eyes started to glitter. "It needs some sort of way of containing that energy if it does that again. Like… doors."

His son's twisted ankle and the task of going over the readings from the Grisbee's cabin completely forgotten, Jack hurried over to a pile of invention sketches and grabbed a blank piece of paper. "Aluminum, they'd have to be," he murmured as he started to draw, "to keep the energy conduction low. Rubber on the inside? Maybe a ferrous aluminum… I think I have some of that in the garage…"

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Jazz made it home at the same time as her mother. "Hey," she said, slinging her backpack over her shoulder so she could grab a few bags of groceries from the back of the car.

Maddie sent her a small smile. "Hi, sweetie. Get your report done already?"

"No." Jazz followed her mom through the back door and into the kitchen. "But it's not due until next Monday. I've got plenty of time to work on it later."

"I'm sure you'll do fine," Maddie said, dropping her bags onto the table and starting to sort through them. Piles were quickly made on the kitchen table – cold food things in one pile, warm food things in another, non-food things on the floor.

Jazz pawed through the bag she had brought in, grinning in amusement as she pulled out eight egg beaters and four rolls of tin foil. "Lab?" she guessed, holding one up for her mother's approval. At the nod, Jazz set them off to the side and grabbed the carton of milk to put away, her mind drifting back to the strange conversation she'd overheard at the library. "Mom," she said, "Have you ever heard of Vlad Masters?"

"Vlad?" Maddie hesitated, looking up at her daughter in surprise. "There was a Vlad Masters that went to college with your father and me. You mean that one?"

"Really?" Jazz cataloged that for later, then shook her head. "I'm talking about the really rich one."

"Same one, sweet heart."

Jazz was floored, her mouth dropping open. "_Seriously?!_ You know _the _Vlad Masters_?_"

Maddie shrugged, still emptying bags. "We went to college together and haven't spoken since… I'm not sure that really classifies as 'know'. He probably doesn't even remember me. Why do you ask?"

"I… uh… was just wondering…" Jazz shook her head, searching for the right words to explain why she was asking about some man out of the blue. "I heard someone mention him today. They said that something was different about Vlad Masters – some kind of sickness maybe – and I didn't want to look it up. I was wondering if you knew what they were talking about."

"He got into an accident at college, I remember that," Maddie said, a strange note to her voice. "He was in the hospital for quite a while. Completely changed his personality." She was silent for a long moment, then smiled at her daughter. "But he got over it and it ended up turning his life around. Look where he is now."

"But there's nothing weird with him now?"

"Not that I know of, sweet heart."

Jazz grabbed a few of the remaining cans and put them in a cupboard, biting her lip. _That's not incredibly helpful. What do Danny and Vlad Masters have in common? What did Sam mean by 'they felt the same'? _"I guess I'll have to look it up and see if I can find anything."

"Thanks for helping me with the groceries," Maddie said with a grin.

Jazz smiled back. "No problem." She grabbed her bag and hesitated for a moment, watching her mother fold up the empty grocery bags and store them under the sink. She had the passing thought to ask her mother about ghosts, but since she wasn't sure what kind of information she'd be asking about, she gave up and turned around to head upstairs.

She paused by Danny's open door, her backpack dangling off her shoulder. Danny was lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. Jazz had meant to watch him for a moment, maybe catch him doing something that would tell her what was going on, but her mouth moved before she could stop it. "It's really tiring being grounded, isn't it?"

Danny glanced over at her and shook his head. "Go away."

"You ever heard of Vlad Masters?"

"No," Danny answered flatly.

Jazz chewed on her cheek for a moment, waiting to see if Danny would offer anything more, then shrugged and changed the topic. "Sam and Tucker were at the library." At her brother's noncommittal sound, she continued. "They checked out a bunch of books on ghosts."

Danny went perfectly still for a moment, almost too still to be real. Then he sat up at glared at her. "Go away. I don't feel good."

Shivering as a cool breeze blew through Danny's open window, Jazz rubbed at her arm, not missing the strange, startled look at that flickered in her brother's eyes for a fraction of a second. "Fine," she muttered, closing the door behind her and heading to her room. "I'll figure it out without your help."

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Across town, a teenage girl walked into her room with a sigh, shutting the door behind her. Valerie Grey glared half-heartedly at the cat curled up on her bed, but didn't make a move to shoo it away. She dropped into her chair with the intent to finish doing her homework, ignoring the shabby cat with years of practice.

The cat picked its head up, blinking its glowing eyes a few times and stretching its rotting paws. It yawned before jumping off the bed and walking straight through a wall, its feet padding a few inches off the carpet.

Val watched it leave before turning back to her work. Monday was coming all too quickly and it brought with it another week of the insanity that was her life at school.

In _real life_, despite everything, the world keeps turning.

(end chapter 12)


	14. Nightmares Come True

**Real Life**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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(Chapter 13)

In Which Nightmares Come True

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Danny curled up in his bed later that night, closing his eyes and praying that he would fall asleep quickly. His parents had finally stopped banging around in the lab and silence had fallen, leaving Danny able to try to turn off the world and escape to the safety of dreamland.

Of course, the nagging reminder that he _still_ hadn't done his math homework wasn't helping, and neither was his throbbing ankle. It still hurt like crazy from when he'd twisted it a few hours earlier, although the swelling had vanished and his mother had declared it 'just fine'.

The fact that it was only 8:30 and the sun hadn't set yet was also keeping Danny awake. He squeezed his eyes shut and put a pillow over his head, blocking out the late evening sunlight. All he wanted to do was forget about this weekend from hell and move on with his life. Nobody should have to remember the things he had done over the weekend: fighting with that metallic ghost, meeting that demonic man, completely succumbing to his ghost side just because he walked near the portal… Unfortunately for Danny, each of the memories was crystal clear in his mind.

To make attempting to fall asleep all the worse, Danny could still feel the portal. It was a distant, quiet hum in the background, a soft tickle on the back of his mind. He hadn't ever been able to feel it from his room before; this was something new and it bothered him. It was just another piece of proof that his ghost side was getting stronger.

Danny forced himself to relax and he pushed everything out of his mind, breathing deeply. "'Snot so bad," he whispered to himself, trying to force himself to believe it. "Everything will be alright tomorrow." His mind focused on something soothing – rainbows, for some reason – and Danny slowly lost himself in their prismatic colors. Dancing in the rain, arms thrown open wide, rainbows shimmering overhead…

And eventually Danny drifted off to sleep to the _almost_ calming drone of the ghost portal.

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Danny was in his ghost form, his claws digging into the ground, his white hair hanging into his eyes. There was an insane glint to his green eyes as he tore after his prey. The creature was running, the waves of emotions flooding off of it ringing against Danny's mind. They smelled incredible, but they were so much more than just a scent. Their taste, their feel, their pure _glory_ sizzled through Danny's body, egging him to run faster and catch up with the thing throwing these emotions into the world.

Chase. Run. _Fear_.

A small section of Danny's mind was disgusted by the realization that it was the fear leeching into the air that tasted the best, but that tiny piece of him couldn't do much more than sit back and cross his arms in frustration as a howling wail burst out of his mouth. The creature he was chasing – his food – let out a tidal wave of terror at the sound. Danny grinned as the crest of emotional energy slammed into him, his fangs glinting in the moonlight and his eyes glowing brightly at the sudden increase in energy.

Danny used that burst of energy to push himself further into the human world and make himself more present in the physical world. He felt the ground shift under his claws and the human air tousled his hair as he raced to catch up with his food. His prey was becoming clearer and easier to see as he slipped into the human realm, edging close enough to make out its black hair and ripped clothes, even in the dark of the night. "Mine," he laughed crazily, bounding into the air and flying for a moment to get in front of his dinner.

The human slid to a stop and scrambled back to its feet, its violet eyes wide and horror filling the air between them. "D-D-Danny…" the human stuttered, backing away.

Danny followed his food, grinning so that it would be able to see his sharp teeth, pleased at the sharp spike of fear that fizzled into the air at the gesture. "Come here," he purred, slinking through the moonlight, loving every moment of the terror that seemed to be holding it frozen in place. The closer he got, the more powerful the energy it was giving off, the better he felt. If only he could actually touch it…

"No!" it screamed when he drifted to within a dozen feet, turning and racing away from him.

Scowling at the small show of defiance, Danny chased after it. His food wasn't allowed to run away! He was determined to know what it felt like to hold his prey as it shivered in terror, so afraid that it was hovering on the brink of scaring itself to death. How alive would he feel at that moment when it actually died from its fear? How perfect a moment would that be?

He smiled as he raced, chuckling when his prey turned down a dark alley and came up short against a chain-link fence. "Mine," he breathed loud enough for the human to hear, listening to it whisper and echo off the alley walls. A cold wind whipped down the alley, making the human draw its arms closer to it and shiver.

The human was breathing loudly and shakily, its entire body trembling, its mini skirt and ripped tank top doing nothing to protect it from the cold. Danny was almost sure that it was done running, ready to give in to the terror that was coursing around it and simply collapse to the ground in defeat, but it somehow gritted its teeth and turned to clamber over the fence.

As it landed noisily on the other side and started to run away, its boots sounding loud in the darkness, Danny snarled. Yes, the thrill of a long hunt was probably going to make the human's final moments all the more delicious, but it was testing his patience. He stalked forwards, his own feet not making a sound as he walked, and phased straight through the fence. His prey had vanished into the shadows on the other side, but Danny could track the scent of its fear without pausing.

Drifting into the air and flying over the top of a low building, Danny caught up to his target as it was leaving the alley and racing past some of the store fronts in Amity Park. _Enough of this_, he thought, landing within arms' reach of his food. "Mine," he growled, reaching out to grab it before it could turn and run away again.

The human managed to jerk its arm out of his grasp, his claws digging deeply into its bare arm and blood spurting out of the gashes. In its fear, it turned the wrong way and ran head-long into one of the large windows of the store. The window cracked from the force and the human rebounded, landing heavily on the sidewalk with trails of blood slipping out from its hair. "No…" it sobbed. "Go away!"

Danny walked forwards, crouching inches away from his prey. "Beautiful rainbow," he whispered, reaching out a bloody claw to trail his finger over its face. Amethyst eyes turned to look up at him, wide and filled with terror. "I want to feel you die."

"D-Dan-Danny... p-please…" it rasped, shuddering and trying to slide away from him. "It's me. It-it's Sam. Pl-please."

Long past words, Danny focused on the fear that was giddily playing through him. He could see where they were coming from – a place deep in the human's chest – and he moved his hand from its face to its chest, pressing against its skin. His hand was burning with pleasure from being so close to the source of the human's fear. "More," he breathed. If only he could get his hand closer… wrap it around that spot… draw it into himself… "Die…"

"_DANNY!"_ the human shrieked as his hand twisted intangible and reached forwards.

Locked deep within his own mind, Danny screamed.

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"DANNY!"

Danny jerked away, his eyes wide and his throat raw, scrambling away from the hands that were touching him. He came up short against the wall, his breath struggling to make its way in and out of his chest. A light flicked on and Danny shut his eyes in pain, still shivering in terror.

"Danny…"

He recognized his mother's voice, swallowing heavily and focusing on getting his breathing to slow down. His head dropped back against the wall and he tried to relax. _It was just a dream. Just a dream._

"Danny, are you okay?"

Opening his eyes, blinking through the tears as his eyes adjusting, he nodded. "Nightmare," he said as way of explanation, surprised at how much his throat hurt. He licked his lips and took a deep breath, forcing his hands to stop shaking. It didn't work nearly as well as he would have liked.

His mother sank onto the bed next to him. "You were really screaming," she said softly, reaching out and brushing her hand across his forehead. "Must have been some nightmare."

Danny shrugged. Glancing up at the door, he flushed when he saw both his sister and his dad standing quietly in the doorway. One of them must have been the ones to turn on the lights earlier.

"You haven't woken up screaming since you were four," Maddie added. "What was it about?"

Danny was silent for a long moment, staring blankly at the floor. "Stuff," he finally muttered. He wanted to tell her what it was about, but she wouldn't listen to his ghost problems anymore. His shoulders slumped a little at the thought. "It was just a nightmare. Sorry I woke you up."

A hand touched his shoulder and Danny looked up into his mother's worried eyes. A smile crossed her face after a second and she squeezed his shoulder briefly. "I haven't gotten to serve you ice cream at two in the morning for ten years. Come on, I've got some in the freezer."

When he opened his mouth to tell her it was okay, he didn't need ice cream, she cut him off. "You're not going to be able to go right back to sleep anyway." She waited a moment for his nod before standing up to shoo Jazz and Jack back to bed.

Danny pulled his blanket around his shoulders and followed her quietly down into the kitchen, plopping into a chair while she busied herself scooping out two bowls of fudge-swirl ice cream. "I'm kind of impressed this ice cream's lasted as long as it has," she said when she set a bowl and spoon in front of Danny. "Your father usually eats anything containing fudge within an hour or so."

Danny found a small smile on his face as he picked up the spoon and ate a few bites. "He probably doesn't know it's in the freezer yet."

"How did your morning go with him yesterday while I was shopping?" Maddie asked between bites. "I meant to ask earlier and I forgot all about it. He didn't talk too much about that portal of his, did he?"

"No." Shaking his head, Danny licked a drip that was making its way down his spoon towards his fingers. "We worked on the stuff from that hunting cabin."

"Hm," she murmured, falling silent as she ate her ice cream.

Danny focused on getting the ice cream from the bowl to his mouth, trying hard not to remember his nightmare. A shudder slipped through him as a brief flash of the dream drifted into his mind – chasing after Sam in the dark of night, her screaming and in terror. _I'm not going to get any more sleep tonight_, he thought distantly. He knew that every time he closed his eyes, he'd see Sam's fear-filled eyes gazing back at him.

"Are you going to tell me what the dream was about?"

Blinking at the sudden sound of her voice after the long period of silence, Danny glanced up at his mom and shook his head.

She smiled. "It'll make you feel better. It always used to, anyways. You used to love sitting at the table, eating ice cream, telling me the horrors of your nightmares."

Danny snorted. "I bet my dreams weren't too scary when I was four."

"You'd be surprised," Maddie said softly. "You had one incredible imagination. There were a number of nights when you'd talk yourself back to sleep and I'd be the one up all night with the lights on." She grinned, swirling her melting ice cream and gazing out the dark kitchen window for a moment before focusing back on him. "So spill."

"A ghost was chasing Sam," Danny finally muttered.

"Sam, huh?" Maddie said with a grin.

Flushing a little at the tone of his mother's voice, Danny scowled. "You want to hear it or not?"

She brought up her hands in a surrender gesture. "I'll stay quiet."

"A ghost was chasing Sam. He… it wanted to kill her. To feed off of her terror until she scared herself to death. I… it chased her all over town… down a dark alley…" Danny broke off with a shiver, closing his eyes for a moment. The nightmare was still crazily fresh in his mind. "She ran away, but it followed. It cornered her and really hurt her…"

He felt a hand touch his and his eyes opened. Maddie was gazing at him with sympathy in her eyes. "It… reached inside of her," Danny continued softly, his eyes training down on his ice cream. "It was going to rip out her _soul_, Mom. And all I could do was watch."

The swirls of fudge in the melting ice cream didn't look nearly as appetizing as they had a few moments earlier. Confessing this dream had brought back a whole slew of emotions that churned his stomach. One of the worst being _delight._ He had _enjoyed_ how she'd felt in his dream… and a piece of him still did.

He pushed his ice cream away and buried his head in his arms, nauseous and disgusted with himself. The claws that had been on his hands had felt so natural, the fangs in his mouth fitting like he'd been born with them. There hadn't been a thought in his head to stop chasing his best friend – it had all felt too wonderful. He'd never felt anything like it and it had completely blown him away.

A not-so-small part of him wanted to feel it again.

"That ghost was nothing but a monster," he whispered. "A demon, Mom. It lived for terror and it loved it."

There was a few seconds of silence before his mother spoke. She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. "Danny, you have to remember that ghosts aren't people. They're just… things. They don't have any concept of ethics or moral right and wrong. They just do what they do."

Danny looked up at her, studying the calm look in her eyes and wishing that he could tell her more than he had. She looked like she had all of the answers, the small smile on her face hiding a library of information on the paranormal.

"There's lots of theories about ghosts," she said, sitting back in her chair and popping another bite of ice cream into her mouth. "None of it is considered 'credible' science by a lot of researchers, but a lot of it has a huge basis in fact and research. One of them is the idea that ghosts feed on or exist because of human emotion. The theory is that human emotion – some sort of emanation of human spirits or souls – is actually a form of unknown energy. Ghosts are made up of this energy and feed off it."

"I thought you said ghosts were made of ectoplasm." Danny watched her eat, wanting to hear more of his mother's theory. Her voice was soothing, momentarily chasing away the remnants of his nightmare.

She smiled. "There's no difference, according to theory. Plasma is a form of energized matter… so if you could give energy a physical form, it would manifest as plasma. Ectoplasma, in this case."

Her eyes were a bit distant as she thought. "The ghost from your nightmare, though… it would fit pretty well – no morals, no ethical ability to see Sam as anything other than food. It wouldn't ever have been able to comprehend a human as something more than that. According to this theory anyways, ghosts are completely made up of that emotional energy and, due to that, they're not capable of feeling anything _except_ the certain emotions that it consisted of. All the ghost would have understood was that Sam was food, that what it was doing was making Sam 'taste' better, and that it was enjoying it."

Danny shivered at how close his mother's description was coming to what it had actually felt like. "And…?" he asked when she didn't speak for a moment.

"You wouldn't have been able to 'logic' the ghost," she said, smiling. "Human reason would have been completely lost on it. I doubt there would have been anything you could have done to chase the ghost away from Sam." She shook her head, eating the last bite of her ice cream before continuing. "Nobody has ever died because of ghosts, Sweetie. They can't hurt you and you shouldn't worry about it."

"But what if there's a ghost that could?" Danny pressed, sitting up when his mother grabbed their bowls to bring them to the sink. "What if there was a ghost that was human enough to kill people?"

Maddie threw a glance over her shoulder, her eyebrow arched in surprise. "That's not possible, Danny. Ghosts can't become more human-"

"But what if it was?" Danny interrupted.

She set the bowls into the sink. "A creature with no morals, completely driven by emotional highs, and capable of actually doing damage?" She shivered and then laughed softly. "You've still got the same imagination you did when you were four. That's one creepy thing you've dreamed up." Her eyes drifted to his and her smile vanished at the earnest look on his face. "That kind of thing would kill without remorse, without care, and without stopping. We'd have to destroy it."

Danny stared into his mother's eyes, his breath hitching in his throat. _She's talking about me…_ "And you could do that?" he asked softly.

"Yes," she said firmly. She walked over to him and knelt down so that their eyes were level, her gaze steady. "It wouldn't ever be able to hurt you or Jazz or Sam or anyone. You don't need to worry. If something like that ever _could _happen, we'd stop it."

_But it is me_, Danny cried in his own mind, tearing his gaze away from hers and studying the floor. _Would you destroy me? Would you save Sam from your own son?_

"Are you going to be able to go back to sleep?" she murmured.

_Not in a million years. _He shook his head.

"Me either," she sighed. "Let's get a movie."

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Sam's mind was in the clouds as she walked down to breakfast. Her alarm clock had woken her far too early and she'd muddled her way through getting ready for the day. She was still dreamy and deep in thought when she stepped into the kitchen to find something to eat.

"Morning," she said sleepily to her mom as she pulled the box of oatmeal and a bowl out of the cabinet, pouring herself a bowl of the dry oats.

"Good morning," Pamela answered, never taking her head out of her newspaper. "Sleep well?"

Sam nodded, not caring if her mother saw the motion or not. Pouring some hot water into a tea kettle and setting it on the stove to boil, Sam let her eyes half-close and she groggily watched the burner drift from black to bright red.

It was most definitely a Monday, Sam figured. Nothing but school could compel her to leave the warm comfort of her bed to seek out the dazzling sunlight. Of course, the fact that it was finally Monday brought with it a few decidedly interesting issues.

The biggest one being her best friend. _Danny_, she thought. _I wonder how the rest of his weekend went._

Danny yanked Sam's mind in two very different directions. On the one hand, this was her _best friend_ – someone she trusted and cared about like family. The fact that he was going through such a tough time, obviously terrified and unable to understand what he was going through, made her feel awful… especially since her stomach twisted with guilt every time she thought about it. It had been her fault he'd been in that portal to begin with. She wanted to help him more than anything.

Except there was that other hand. The scared and confused other hand that shivered whenever the image of Danny popped into her mind. The Danny with his burned skin and death-white hair and eyes that gazed hungrily straight into her very soul. The Danny that had confessed that yes, he _was_ feeding off of her. The Danny that had no humanity and no life inside of him.

The Danny that Sam wanted nothing more than to stay as far away from as possible.

It made for an interesting issue – one that Tucker and her had spoken about for hours the previous day after leaving the library. Both of them felt nearly the same; they wanted to help and they wanted to run away at the same time. The problem of _how_ to help. Neither of them had managed to come up with any sort of information on Danny's particular problem. The only thing they had was Vlad Masters.

Tucker was against telling Danny about Mr. Masters, mostly due to the fact that the only tiny shred of proof that Mr. Masters was anything _like_ Danny was how Sam had felt standing next to him, and that was really nothing at all. _Danny's got enough on his plate to not have to deal with 'what if's and 'maybe's_, Tucker had argued. _We'll research it. If we can find anything – anything at all – we'll tell him._

Sam's eyes narrowed as she gazed at the tea kettle on the stove. She had wanted to tell Danny everything. Danny _deserved_ to know what she thought about Mr. Masters, especially after he'd told them that he'd run into something in the woods that might have been a creature like himself. _Although_, Sam conceded to herself_, Danny did say that he didn't want to be anything like the man in the woods_.

By the end of their hours of talking the previous day, Sam and Tucker had come to an agreement: neither would mention Vlad Masters to Danny. Tucker was going to do some research, look a few things up, try to find some kind of information that might be useful, and if he found anything, they would tell Danny all about it.

The knowledge that they were going to be keeping secrets from Danny weighed on Sam's heart. It didn't help that she knew Danny was already keeping secrets from them – it still burned a little hole in the back of her mind. Sam liked to speak her mind about things and be very blunt and honest. Secrets and backstabbing weren't her forte.

When the tea kettle started to whine and whistle, Sam blinked herself out of her musings and quietly poured the boiling water onto her oatmeal, stirring it until it was the perfect consistency. Then she plunked down at the table, fully intending on continuing to ignore her mother and stay wrapped up in her own sleepy thoughts.

Her mother, though, seemed to be on a different thought pattern. "Do you want some sugar?"

Sam shook her head and spooned some of the lumpy mash into her mouth.

"I got you a new outfit this weekend."

Sam froze, the spoon hovering just over the top of the oatmeal. She slowly raised her gaze to stare at her mother. "Huh?"

Pamela smiled, folding up her newspaper and setting it down on the table. "There was a sale this weekend and I saw this adorable outfit. I knew it would look beautiful on you!"

Looking down at her clothes, Sam arched an eyebrow. Her clothes were dark and loose, comfortable and covering, the perfect thing to keep from standing out while at school. And, as it so happened, the bane of her mother's existence. Sam refused to count how many times her mother had tried to get her to dress in something more 'appropriate'. "I'm already dressed," she mumbled.

"You don't show off your Manson beauty," her mother said with a smile. "A bit of makeup, maybe some hair product, and a pretty dress. You'd be the talk of the school, I'm sure."

_Yeah_, Sam thought sourly, _that I would be. They'd talk and point and laugh… endlessly_. "I like how I look."

"You'll never get a boy looking like that. Just try it on?"

'Just try it on' sounded so innocent – just a few moments of torture to appease her mother's sense of duty – but Sam knew better. 'Just trying it on' would inevitably lead to 'just for one day', which would lead to places Sam didn't want to venture. Since it was too early on a Monday morning for Sam to be anything but her normal, blunt, honest self, her answer was quick and simple: "No."

"Please, Sammikins."

Sam wrinkled her nose at the nickname. "I look just fine the way I am," she argued.

Pamela's forehead creased in confusion. "You don't show off any of your curves, dear. You're so… _frumpy_."

"I don't _want_ to show off curves," Sam said, her voice getting a little heated. "I _like_ frumpy."

"But a skirt and some makeup… maybe a pair of heels… that would make you look like the gorgeous young woman you really are. Maybe you could impress that Dash Baxter I've been hearing about from Mrs. Sanchez."

Sam's fingers tightened around the spoon she was holding. "Dash Baxter is a bully and an idiot."

"Maybe someone else then. There aren't any cute boys at your school?"

"I don't want to impress any boys!" Sam said, anger rising in her voice. "The boys at my school are _immature _and _disgusting_. I'm not going to wear something to impress a group of hormone-addled idiots!"

"Just for yourself?" Pamela continued, apparently unconcerned about her daughter's rising temper. "All girls like to look pretty on occasion."

Sam glowered, dropping the spoon into her bowl and huffing. "Not me and you know it."

"But you deserve it, dear. You're so kind and thoughtful – you deserve to pamper yourself every now and then. That's why I got the outfit for you."

"What's the quickest way out of this conversation?" Sam muttered to herself, rolling her eyes up to stare at the ceiling. Her mother seemed to think that wearing things that were 'pretty' or 'in style' would make Sam happy. _Doesn't she understand me at all?_ Sam screamed in her own mind. Helping people, saving things, fixing the planet – _those_ things made Sam happy. _Real_ things, not fake things like looks and popularity contests.

Perhaps if this would have been the first time this conversation had happened, Sam would have simply blown it off and went to school. If this had been the tenth time, she would have probably just complained and stormed off. But this was something the fiftieth time this conversation had played out and it was driving Sam off the deep end. "I don't _want_ to look pretty," she seethed.

"Yes you do," Pamela replied quietly.

"No. No, I don't." Sam grabbed her bowl of oatmeal and stood up, heading for her room with the intent to finish her breakfast in a semblance of peace.

"A skirt, makeup, and heels, dear. Please try it on."

Sam growled softly as she stormed out of the kitchen and up to her room, belatedly noticing the bag sitting on the floor by her closet. Her mother must have dropped it off yesterday while she and Tucker were out talking. Dropping onto her bed and setting her warm bowl of oatmeal in her lap, Sam muttered darkly to herself for a few minutes as she ate the remainder of her breakfast.

There were certainly times when she hated her mother. The woman seemed to want nothing more than to stick her fingers into every aspect of Sam's life. She complained about Sam's friends, about Sam's wardrobe, about where Sam went after school… The stream of nagging was nearly unending.

Sam's eyes drifted to her closet, staring at the half-open doors in a sort of contemplation. Her mind was busily running through ways to get her mother off of her back – at least for a while. Was she, or was she not, a teenager? Couldn't she make her own decisions on what was appropriate for her to wear?

A plan sparkled in Sam's mind and she set her empty breakfast bowl on her desk, getting up and walking over to the closet. "I wonder…" she whispered, grabbing a shirt and holding it up to her in the mirror, a wicked grin on her face. "A skirt, makeup, and heels. I can do that."

As she changed, she never once looked in the bag sitting unopened by her closet. If she would have, Sam might have changed her mind about what she was about to do. Inside the bag sat a simple plaid skirt, a form-fitting black top with a stylish purple design, and a matching purple clip for her hair. All of it made from eco-friendly, natural products.

Instead, Sam stuffed the clothes she had taken off into her backpack to change into later, wedged her feet into a hair of heels she hadn't worn in over a year, and walked out the backdoor of her house towards school. The grin never faded – especially not after seeing the look of horror that crossed her mother's face.

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Danny sighed, leaning against the counter and staring at the kitchen table with a frustrated sigh. He hadn't actually fallen back to sleep after his nightmare – his mother had drifted off while watching one of the movies – and Danny was tired and grumpy. And so far his morning wasn't turning out any better than his night had been.

After surviving the terrifying nightmare about hunting his best friend as a ghost and that nauseating conversation with his mother about exactly what kind of monster he really was… he'd been trapped in that strange 'dead mode' for the past two hours. Everything was blurry and distant, his family's emotions tingeing the air with vague, tantalizing aromas. He was jumpy, frustrated at being unable to snap out of it, and worried that he'd drop even farther into his ghost side and start attacking his family.

Fortunately he was finding himself in total control this morning. He hadn't had even the faintest desire to kill any of his family members – which was more of a relief than he was willing to admit – and he wasn't becoming any more ghostish as the morning went on. He was, however, starting to grow a little concerned over whether or not he'd be back to normal before school started.

Jazz was sitting at the table reading and spooning cereal distractedly into her mouth. Danny glanced at her blurry form, then focused on the reason he wasn't eating breakfast with his sister. Seated on the table, its drool dripping onto a plate of toast Danny had made earlier, was the ghost puppy from his backyard.

It tipped its head to the side, studying him, then it brought one of its hind legs up to scratch at its moldy ears. Small bits of decaying ghost flesh splattered through the air and a few maggots dropped onto the plate. Danny's nose wrinkled and he pressed his back as firmly as possible against the countertop. "Ew…"

A sound filtered into his ears that Danny recognized was his sister talking. He tore his eyes off the sight of the dead dog drooling on his kitchen table and listened carefully on her. "What?" he asked.

"You going to eat anything?" she said distantly, her voice wavering in and out of focus.

"I'm not hungry anymore," Danny answered, his eyes drifting back to the ghostly maggots that were crawling around the table top. "You can have it."

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As Danny grabbed his backpack and headed to school, the ghost portal in the basement swirled calmly, its emerald mists glowing faintly and steadily. The tiny rents in the barrier that kept the ghosts from pouring through the portal were barely visible against the supernatural glow. There wasn't a single person in the human world that even knew the holes were there.

One nameless ghost appeared on the other side of the barrier, studying it carefully before threading its fingers through the small breaks it discovered and wriggling its fingers back and forth. Lacking a human soul, the ghost couldn't cut through the barrier with the ease Danny had. It worried away at the small holes for nearly an hour before it gave a sharp cry of success.

The small holes in the barrier had grown larger.

In _real life_, nightmares come true.

(end chapter 13)


	15. You Can't Hide Forever

**Real Life  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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Chapter 14

In Which You Can't Hide Forever

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Tucker figured that Mondays were the worst thing ever invented. He dropped into his seat in math and sighed, rubbing his temples. With all the ghost stuff and Danny, his weekend had been basically trashed and he felt like he hadn't gotten a break at all. On top of that, he'd had to stay up late last night to finish his math assignment.

Mondays stunk.

_But_, he decided, watching his best friend walk into class with a hopeless and pale look on his face, _it could definitely be worse_. When Danny almost collapsed into his desk, his backpack dropping to the floor, Tucker sent him a smile. He opened his mouth to speak, but Danny's stomach grumbled loud enough to cut him off and change the words he was about to say. "No breakfast?"

Danny shook his head and closed his eyes with a sigh. "Don't ask. Please."

"How was Sunday?"

"Worse than Saturday," Danny muttered, crossing his arms and burying his head.

Tucker blinked and his mouth dropped open. Saturday had been one of Danny's low points – actually running away from his parents. He couldn't imagine a day that would be worse than what Danny'd gone through on Saturday. "How… what happened?"

When Danny merely shrugged and made a noncommittal sound, Tucker scowled. "What was all the 'we're a team and we work together' junk on Saturday about if you're just going to keep secrets again?"

Danny looked up at him, a frustrated look on his face. "I'm starving. I'm exhausted. I've only just figured out how to be human again. _Leave me alone._" Emerald sparks appeared in his eyes, giving his face a menacing look and sending a shiver down Tucker's back.

Tucker sat back in his chair and closed his mouth, looking away and rubbing his arms to dispel the chill that had invaded his body. "Fine, man. Whatever." His tone was hurt and angry, but he really didn't mean it. He was getting the hang of Danny's weird emotional swings and he was sure Danny's next sentence would be an apology.

Danny sighed, right on cue. "I didn't mean that, Tucker. I'm just…"

After a moment, Tucker glanced over at his friend to see why he had trailed off. Danny was staring blankly forwards, his mouth moving soundlessly, the color drained from his face. Following his gaze, Tucker arched an eyebrow in surprise. _I seriously need to get a camera phone or a PDA_, he complained to himself. _This is one of those picture moments._

Sam was walking down the aisle between the seats, a maniacal grin on her face and a pleased gleam in her eye. She was wearing a dark mini skirt, a ripped tank top, fishnet gloves and stockings, and high heels… skin tight clothes on a girl that usually wore looser, baggy clothing. Once you included her dark and overdone makeup, she was the perfect not-at-all-school-appropriate Goth. "Wow, Sam," Tucker managed.

"My mom and I got into another one of those discussions on what I should wear to school today," she said pleasantly.

"And you thought this was some sort of compromise?" Tucker asked.

"Most definitely," Sam said, settling into her seat. "Heels. Skirt. Makeup. Everything my mother wanted me to wear. Besides, I've got my other clothes in my bag for when the school calls me on it."

Tucker snorted, looking at his pale and speechless best friend with a grin. "I think you broke Danny's brain with all your pretty girlishness."

Danny snapped out of whatever daze he'd been in to glare at him. "Don't," he breathed.

"So," Sam said, "the world wishes to know how your parents took you ditching them on Saturday."

"Not so horribly," Danny answered vaguely with a shrug, turning to stare down at his fingers. "I told my mom I saw something and she got all emotional and basically let me off the hook."

"Not grounded anymore?" Tucker asked.

"No, I'm still grounded. Just not more-so than I was before."

"And your Sunday was just horrible." Tucker leaned forwards. "Do tell."

Danny simply shook his head. "Later."

Sam blinked and reached over to touch his arm. "We've got time before-"

"Later," Danny interrupted fiercely. "After school."

"You're grounded after school," Tucker reminded him.

Danny sighed loudly. "Lunch," he corrected after a moment. "How was your weekend?"

"Kind of boring," Tucker said with a shrug, wondering why Danny was so against telling them what had happened. But he was willing to give his friend a break… for now, anyways. "I stayed up really late researching..." he broke off, shaking his head. He hadn't found _any_ information to back up Sam's theories on Vlad Masters, so it wasn't something he was going to mention. The beat-up and stressed-out look on Danny's face only reinforced Tucker's idea that Danny didn't need anything else on his plate at the moment. "And Sam and I spent some time at the library on Sunday."

"I heard," Danny said. "Jazz was there. She said you were looking up stuff on ghosts?"

"You asked for help." Tucker grinned, poking his friend's shoulder. "Sam and I, as best friends, are obligated to at least attempt to help. It's written in some code somewhere, I'm sure. But I have to inform you that we only worked until lunch – after that, we went to see a movie."

A faint smile twitched at the corner of Danny's mouth. "Best friend obligation time limit?"

Tucker chuckled and nodded, but his smile faded. "We didn't find out too much, unfortunately. It seems like a lot of the authors that have written about ghosts don't really know what ghosts are. They just make guesses and random theories."

"There _was _some good stuff," Sam added. "Tucker and I came up with some ideas that we need to run past you, see what you think about them. Maybe they'll help."

"Remember how you told us you're pretty sure ghosts 'feed' off human emotions?" Tucker asked. "Well, there's this one theory that ghosts aren't really anything but imprints left behind by our souls." He grinned and leaned forwards, his eyes starting to sparkle as he got to rattle off one of his pet theories. "See, we've all got emotions. Living people let out emotional energy little by little, like the sun or like ripples in a pond. But when a person dies all that emotional energy is let out at once. If that burst of energy is strong enough, their soul leaves behind a picture of what it was in the instant of death – like a moving photograph or something. Thus… a ghost."

Tucker watched as his friend shivered a little. "Based on what I've been reading," Tucker continued, "I figure that these soul pictures, these ghosts, are made out of the emotions that were present at the time of their death. And I'm thinking that particular mix of emotions would be what that ghost would 'key' into. So a ghost that was created out of fear would be attracted to that same kind of fear. A ghost that was created with large amounts of depression would try to find that same depressed emotion."

Danny slumped back in his chair, an unsettled look on his face. Tucker was about to ask why, but the bell rang and the math teacher stood up to start class, effectively silencing their conversation. Tucker stared at Danny for a moment longer, studying Danny's blank and pale look, before exchanging a look with Sam. Sam shrugged. _Stupid school_, Tucker thought. _This is so much more important than math…_

Wrinkling his nose, Tucker dug out his math notebook and opened it. Danny was safe for now – maybe even until lunch – but as soon as the bell rang he was going to pester Danny until every secret was spilled and dissected.

A faint grin settled on Tucker's face as the teacher finished taking attendance and picked up the math book for the daily ritual of reading aloud from the text book. _Danny reacted to what I said. The theory hit something inside of him_.

Instead of math, Tucker found himself jotting down notes about ghosts and his own pet theories, organizing his thoughts for when he could pin Danny in place like a hapless frog in a biology classroom.

"Mr. Falluca, may I be excused?"

Tucker glanced up at Danny and blinked in surprise.

"Class just started," the math teacher said blandly.

"But I forgot my calculator in my locker," Danny argued back. Tucker watched Danny slip a hand forwards to cover his calculator from the teacher's sight, tapping it nervously with his finger. Tucker's forehead furrowed as he tried to figure out what was up with his friend. Danny hardly ever lied to his teachers… he was just too open and honest.

The teacher sighed. "It is your duty as a high school student to remember to bring all of your materials to class, Mr. Fenton. It is against class policy to allow you to get what you forgot once class has started."

"It's just the once, Mr. Falluca," Danny said. "Please?"

"Fine. Go." Mr. Falluca waved his hand and looked back down to his math book. "Now, back to where we were…"

Tucker ignored the teacher droning in the front of the room, instead watching Danny walk quickly towards the front of the room and vanish into the hallway. He shot a look over to Sam, but she was staring at the door with the same confused look he probably had on his face.

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"Damn it," Danny hissed as he walked down the hallway as quickly as he could, holding one of his hands safely behind his back. He smiled thinly at a passing teacher, edging along the wall so that she wouldn't be able to see his hand. The teacher arched an eyebrow, but simply shook her head, rolled her eyes, and seemed to ignore him.

Making it to the safety of the bathroom, Danny picked one of the stalls and quickly locked himself inside before bring his hand out from behind his back to study it in dismay. His hand was drained of color, looking almost like he'd stuck his arm into a black and white film, and it was tingling madly. He clenched his fist, feeling the movement but not the sensation of his fingers touching each other.

He dropped onto the toilet and held his hand in front of him, sighing in frustration. On a whim, he ran his hand straight through the walls of the bathroom stall. He didn't feel it at all; it was almost like the wall was nothing but an illusion. Shaking his hand fiercely, he tried to dispel the strange sensation of being intangible.

Nothing. His hand stayed wonderfully out of phase, just like it had during math class.

"This is fun," he muttered darkly, staring at his fingers and trying to figure out what to do next. "I wonder what's going to happen next."

He closed his eyes and ran his other hand through his hair, letting it rest at the back of his neck for a moment. "I can do this." He let his eyes open again to gaze at his hands. "I just need to fix this, than I can go back to class." Snorting, an unconscious grin appeared on his face. "Yeah, that's a huge motivator. I get to go back to math class."

His smile didn't last very long. The sad truth was that he'd much rather be sitting in math class than sitting right here with his hand doing something human hands weren't designed to be able to do. To be completely honest, he'd rather be doing _anything_ – including waiting for Dash to pummel him into dust – than be sitting here right now.

The colorlessness extended up past his wrist, almost half-way to his elbow before it faded back into its normal color. Danny reached over and poked the skin that still looked normal, feeling the pressure of his finger against his skin. Eyebrows furrowing, he reached over and poked his colorless hand. His finger went straight through. Beyond a distant feeling of coldness surrounding his poking hand, neither hand felt it.

"I have two hands in the same spot," he murmured, his hands literally going through each other. The thought made his stomach churn for a moment and he separated his hands, studying both hands for any sort of damage before he was able to get rid of the disquieting feeling that he'd just done something incredibly wrong.

He went back to studying the place where his tangible arm and his intangible arm met. The transition was smooth and steady rather than abrupt. "I wonder…" He placed his finger by his elbow and started to drag it towards his hand, curious as to when his finger would fall through his arm, wondering what that transition area would feel like.

His finger tickled down his arm, but when he reached the boundary of the colorless area a sharp pain ratcheted up his arm. Gasping in surprised pain, he jerked away, but his finger came back to carefully prod that one area of his arm. It stung, preventing him from doing much more than skimming his finger over the skin.

When his finger reached the intangible part of his arm and the sensation of his finger vanished, a morbid thought crossed his mind. Even as his face was screwing into an expression of disgust, he took his finger and reached _inside_ the intangible part of his arm, trying to determine what that boundary on his arm would feel like on the inside of his arm. Would he be able to feel his bone sticking out? Or his muscles twitch? What happened to his blood… would his finger come out bloody?

It hurt even worse to prod the inside of his arm than the outside, but Danny gritted his teeth a bit and felt around, determining that the solid part of his arm formed a dome-shape and that no, he couldn't feel anything in particular other than pain. He couldn't press in hard enough to figure out if he was pressing on bone or muscle. Pulling his normal hand back out of his arm, he blinked at the flecks of red blood on his fingers.

"Huh." He wiped the specks of blood off on his jeans and went back to staring steadily at his hand. None of this had helped him figure out how to get his hand back to normal – and there was no way he was going back to class with a hand like this. People were already looking at him strangely, he didn't need them noticing that things passed right through his hand. "The incredible holographic hand boy," he muttered after a moment. "I could always try to pass myself off as a lame superhero."

A few minutes passed as Danny stared quietly at his hand, unable to come up with anything more helpful. This was completely out of Danny's realm of understanding. How does one turn one's hand solid? He had nowhere to start from and it was completely throwing him for a loop.

The tingling feeling was starting to drive him nuts. It was actually starting to _itch_, and he'd caught himself more than once stupidly trying to scratch at his intangible arm. He flexed his fist a few times, never feeling anything more than the movement of his fingers, but it didn't dispel the maddening feeling. And the itch was growing worse and worse by the moment.

It did have one positive point, though, as it gave him an idea to try. "Maybe that feeling has something to do with it," he murmured, closing his eyes and trying to focus on the tingling feeling. The insane itchiness of it was mostly covering up the feeling, but he desperately ignored it. This was his _only_ idea – it had to work.

He found the feeling and tried to coax it forwards in his arm, wondering if he could turn more of his arm intangible. It didn't move, causing Danny to scowl faintly, squeezing his eyes together more firmly and concentrating harder. _Come on, come on, come on… Come here._

Nothing. His nose wrinkled in annoyance and, in a fit of frustration that made him forget that his hand was going to go straight through anything, struck the wall with his hand. He had his fingers back in front of him and was focusing back on solving his problem before he realized that he had actually hit the wall with his intangible hand.

His eyes jerked open and he stared at his hand. The colorlessness was simply gone, along with the tingling feeling. He absently scratched at his hand, soothing the itch, trying to figure out what in the world he'd done to get his hand back to normal. "I hit the wall."

He gazed at the stall's partition for a moment, confused. "I wanted to hit the wall." His eyes flicked back to his hand. "I _wanted _to hit the wall, so I did. And… if I _wanted _my hand to go through…"

Placing his hand on the wall, Danny willed his hand intangible. He frowned and focused, trying to call that feeling back to his hand. Nothing.

Finally he gave up, letting his hand fall back to his side. "Well, that didn't work," he said with a shrug and a faintly disappointed feeling in his heart. _I was so close…_

Letting himself out of the toilet stall, Danny walked up to the mirror and washed his hands. His eyes flicked up to his reflection for a moment, wincing at the strung-out look to his face. The stress of this life, combined with the lack of sleep and food, was getting to him.

"I wonder how long I've been in here," he muttered as he dried his hands on his jeans and headed back to class. He'd completely lost track of time, but it had felt like quite a period of time. Fifteen minutes… maybe twenty. Mr. Falluca was going to give him detention for vanishing for that long.

When he quietly let himself back into the room, the math teacher already had a detention slip ready for him. Danny took it, his stomach dropping and a nauseous feeling crawling up his throat. "A half-hour and still couldn't find your calculator, Mr. Fenton?" the teacher droned from his spot behind his desk.

Danny shook his head, ready to hide in his chair.

"Maybe you should check the top of your desk better next time," the teacher added with a sour note to his voice. "Those pesky calculators are so hard to see. They blend in with the tabletops."

Danny tried to hide his wince as he hurried to the back of the room and dropped into his seat, copying the assignment off the board and steadfastly ignoring the looks from Sam and Tucker. His eyes were burning as he focused on the blank sheet of paper in front of him, trying to ignore the detention slip being crushed in his hand.

He'd never had detention before. He'd barely even gotten in _trouble_ before and now he had detention. _It's totally unfair_, he argued in his mind, biting his lip and blinking to prevent tears from building up in his eyes. He glanced up once at the teacher, who wasn't paying any attention to him, and sighed. _It's not fair_. _I couldn't help it._

A hand touched his shoulder and he flinched. "You okay?" Sam whispered.

Danny nodded his head, shrugging off her hand and picking up his pencil. "It's just detention," he lied softly. "No big deal."

"Danny…"

"Ms. Manson," the teacher snapped. "Get back to work."

Watching her out of the corner of his eye, Danny saw her glare at the teacher for a moment before shaking her head. She glanced over at him and caught his eyes. Danny instantly dropped his gaze to the floor and sighed, turning to his own work.

"Oh, and Mr. Fenton – can I get your homework?" Mr. Falluca asked.

Danny flinched a little as he pulled out the worksheet he hadn't even attempted to do with all of the insanity over the weekend. The blank page swirled in front of him for a moment as Danny stared at it, feeling like he was drowning in everything that was being piled on top of him. "No sleep, no breakfast, no homework," Danny muttered to himself. "Ghosts, dead things, portals…"

"Mr. Fenton, now please."

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"Two days of detention?" Sam said sympathetically, walking next to Danny as they headed towards their next class. She studied the way he was walking, his hands stuffed into his pockets, his head hanging low, his feet shuffling on the tile. His eyes were still a little red and Sam knew that he was more troubled about getting detention than he was letting on. "That seems harsh."

"I hate math," Danny muttered. "I hate Mondays."

"Maybe you can go to Lancer and fight it," Tucker suggested, "especially if you had a good reason to leave class. Why'd you vanish anyways?"

Danny hesitated for a moment in the hallway, his friends getting a step ahead of him. "My hand disappeared," he finally said, "and it wouldn't come back."

"Oh." Sam couldn't help but glance down at his hands. "You okay?" He bobbed his head in agreement, but Sam arched an eyebrow in disbelief. "I didn't mean about your hand. _You_ – are _you_ okay?"

"_I hate this_." The words that came out of Danny's mouth were spoken with a vehemence that Sam had never heard before. Her mouth dropped open in surprise, but Danny wasn't finished. "I didn't get any sleep last night because of nightmares, I didn't get any breakfast this morning because there was a dead and rotting _dog_ sitting on my kitchen table," he took a breath, his body visibly tensing, "I didn't get my homework done because it's _so _far down on my list of things to worry about that it's not even on the list any more, I can't keep myself from falling through things, I lose control of _my own body_ and I can't stop it, I have no idea what's happening to me, my parents don't even _believe _me when I asked them to help, and now I've got detention and my parents are going to _ground me until I'm thirty_."

He raised his eyes and met hers, sparkles of emerald light shimmering in his blue irises. "I _hate_ this," he said harshly, "like you can't even _imagine_, Sam." He swallowed heavily and dropped his gaze back to the floor. "And you're asking if I'm okay," he whispered.

"I'm sorry," Sam said, awkwardly standing in the hallway and not knowing what to say. She glanced at Tucker, who seemed to be equally off-kilter. "We'll figure it out."

Danny snorted and started moving again, heading towards his second period class.

"Danny." Sam took a few quick steps and grabbed his arm. "It's going to be okay. It can okay get better, right?"

He shook off her hand and stalked off, leaving Sam and Tucker behind in the hallway. "Was that some form of Gothic optimism?" Tucker said softly, staring at the corner where Danny had disappeared.

Sam shot him a look. "What are we going to do, Tucker? He gets worse every time we see him."

Shrugging, Tucker stuck his hands in his pockets. "I don't know, Sam." Tucker opened his mouth to say more, but another voice boomed through the hallway.

"Mrs. Manson!"

Sam flinched as the vice principal stalked down the hallway towards her, interrupting their conversation. "Yes, Mr. Lancer?"

"Those clothes are completely inappropriate. I expected better from you."

"I know, Mr. Lancer. I forgot to change." Sam flushed a little, glancing down at the skimpy tank top and short mini skirt she'd worn to annoy her mother.

"Detention," the balding man said, scribbling on the little book he carried around before handing her a slip of paper. "And you'll have to change before you can go to your next period."

Sam nodded and quietly took the paper. "Yeah." But as the vice principal walked away, Sam shrugged and allowed herself a small smile. "Well, now Danny won't be lonely."

Tucker snorted before turning to leave. "We'll figure it out, Sam," he called over his shoulder. "I'll see you at lunch."

Tucking her detention slip into her notebook, Sam headed for the closest bathroom to change into her normal clothes. _I wonder how my mother's going to take me getting detention again_, she thought with a small sigh. _I'm going to be grounded too at this rate…_

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"Look at Fenturd."

Valerie Grey glanced in the direction of the trio of losers, arching a curious eyebrow. The boy in question was simply sitting in his chair at the cafeteria, looking as pale and sick like he had been the entire previous week. His two friends were seated on either side of him – almost like some sort of guard – and were apparently keeping up a lively conversation without any input from their sick-looking friend. Val wrinkled her nose, hoping that the boy wasn't about to throw up in the cafeteria. "What about him?"

"Watch for a second," Dash muttered, his malicious grin evident in his voice.

Val glanced back at Dash, then back over her shoulder. Fenton was poking dismally at the cheeseburger on his tray, obviously not wanting to eat it. Val couldn't quite blame him – the food was barely edible on a good day and, looking as sick as he did, Fenton probably had a weaker stomach than most at the moment. She watched him poke it a few times before she sat up a little straighter.

"You saw it?" Dash said.

"Yeah," Val said. She looked up into the football player's blue eyes, curious. "But how did you?"

Dash looked offended. Brushing a hand through his close-cut blonde hair, Dash grinned. "It's my job to find weaknesses in losers. And when they're going to be obvious about it, they're just asking for it."

Val rolled her eyes, looking back to Fenton with an amused smile on her face. The loser reached out to poke his cheeseburger, then jumped and rubbed his hand, almost like he'd been stung. He really _was _asking for it acting so freaky. "I wonder why he's doing that."

"I don't really care. All I know is I can't pass up this golden opportunity," Dash said happily. "Paulina, I'll be right back."

The Hispanic girl sitting on Dash's other side looked up at the mention of her name, watching Dash stand up. "Huh?"

"I'm going to go have some fun with Fentasia."

Paulina wrinkled her nose in disgust. "But what if he's contagious?"

When Dash hesitated, glancing back his soon-to-be target, Val hid her grin. She knew that the _last_ thing Dash wanted was to catch whatever the loser had, but she figured that he wouldn't be able to pass up the opportunity to pester his favorite freak. "I won't touch him," he replied after a moment.

"If you touch him, don't bother coming back," Paulina said, flipping her hair over her shoulder and turning back to her conversation with one of her friends. "I'm not going to risk getting sick this close to subsection semifinals."

Dash shrugged and turned around, leaving his normal table full of jocks and A-list popular friends. Val watched him go and, for the first time since Danny stepped into the portal almost a week earlier, really focused her ghost-seeing eyes on the boy named Danny Fenton.

In _real life _you can't hide forever.

(end chapter 14)


	16. Secrets Aren't So Easy to Keep

**Real Life  
**A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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Chapter 15

In Which Secrets Aren't So Easy To Keep

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Danny stared down at his cheeseburger with a sour expression on his face. Sam and Tucker were yammering away about nothing in particular, quite obviously making an attempt to get him to smile after the blow-up in the hallway a few hours previously, but Danny was simply feeling too tired and nauseated to care. The entire cafeteria stank – it smelled like someone had been sprayed by a skunk and then crawled through a sewer – and, not having eaten anything since a bowl of ice cream the previous night, Danny was starving.

But his stomach was churning just _looking_ at the greasy cheeseburger, much less having to smell it. The stench was coming off the tray of food in almost visible waves. The school had chosen a bad day for the cafeteria to serve even-less-edible-than-normal food. "I hate Mondays," he whispered. Sam broke off complaining about her English report to blink at him, arching an eyebrow and silently asking him to explain. "And I'm hungry," he muttered.

"So eat," Tucker interjected from his other side. He picked up his own lunch, licking his lips before taking a bite.

Danny shot him an incredulous look. "Eat _this_? You can't be serious."

"What's wrong with it?" Sam sporked a bite of her limp salad and grinned. "I mean, other than the fact that it's meat and there's all sorts of ethical dilemmas with eating it."

Danny scowled at his food. He wasn't in the mood to listen to Sam's vegan ethics. "What's _wrong_ with it? Don't you have a nose?" he asked darkly, reaching out to poke his cheeseburger. "It's got to be the worst thing I've ever smelled." When his finger touched the bun, a sharp spike of pain radiated up his hand. Jerking his hand away, he glared at the food. "And for some reason it hurts."

"Hurts?" Tucker asked skeptically. "How can touching a hamburger bun hurt?"

Glancing over at his friend, Danny watched in amazement as Tucker took another huge bite of out of his own cheeseburger. "How are you _eating_ that?" Danny's eyes flickered from Tucker's nauseating lunch to his best friend's confused face.

"It tastes good?" Tucker tried slowly. "There's… there's nothing wrong it, Danny."

"But can't you smell that? It's like moldy gym socks mixed with snicker doodles." Danny blinked incredulously at Tucker, then turned towards Sam, hoping that she'd back him up. "Right, Sam?"

Sam shrugged. "I agree that it smells horrible, but not any worse than normal."

"Yeah, look around," Tucker agreed. "Everyone else is eating it – it seems like you're the only one thinking it smells weird." He stopped, his eyebrows wrinkling behind his glasses. "Think it's a ghost thing?"

Danny's stomach tumbled at that simple question. He looked around the cafeteria, blinking at all of the students that were happily chewing away at their hamburgers. _Yes, it's probably a ghost thing_, he conceded to himself with a sigh. Turning his eyes back to his food, he stared down at his lunch in silence. A wave of the greasy, sticky smell slammed into him and he swallowed down a surge of nausea, pushing the tray away from him and resting his arms on the table. "I hate Mondays."

"So we've heard," Sam muttered.

"What do you think is causing it?" Tucker asked, grabbing Danny's tray and pulling it closer. "Something in the food?"

Danny shrugged noncommittally, no longer interested in why the food smelled so horrible. He didn't want to think about anything that had to do with ghosts or his own freakish abnormality, he just wanted something in his day to go correctly. "I don't know."

With a bit of a frown, Tucker picked up one of the cold fries and waved it under Danny's nose. Danny jerked his head backwards, gazing at his friend darkly. "Well, how else are we going to figure out what's causing the smell?" Tucker said.

"Later, Tucker," Sam interjected. "Right now, we're all dying to hear what happened yesterday in more detail."

Danny groaned a little and buried his head in his arms. "I don't want to talk about it," he tried, hoping the two of them would take it and leave him alone. Just for a few _minutes_, he wanted to pretend to be normal and have everything fade off into the background. This whole thing probably wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't affecting almost every aspect of his life. Even when he was fully human, he had ghosts trailing him around…

_Where are the ghosts?_ Danny, struck by that thought, raised his head curiously and scanned the cafeteria. The previous few days the cafeteria had been swarming with ghosts, flickering at the corners of his vision and driving him insane. Today the place was empty. _That's weird._

"Yeah, not going to work." An elbow lightly poked into his side, causing him to snap out of his momentary daze. "Spill."

Still trying to spot a ghost out of the corner of his eye – and a little confused about why he was worried about not being able to see them, surely it had to be a good thing that he wasn't seeing ghosts anymore – Danny spoke distractedly. "You remember the portal-"

"Fentina."

Freezing, Danny broke off what he was about to say and stared fixedly at the table in front of him, attempting to ignore the large boy in the letter jacket that had appeared on the other side of the table. _Not during lunch. Not in school. Not in front of everyone. Not today…_

"How's it hanging, Fentonia?" Dash said, dropping into an open seat across from Danny.

Danny looked up, gazing blankly at Dash. "Fine, Dash. What do you want?"

"Is that the way to talk to your best buddy in the world?" Dash taunted, grinning and staring straight at Danny.

"Come on, Danny. Let's get out of here," Sam said, grabbing her salad and standing up. "I can smell it too, now."

Danny didn't move, his eyes locked on Dash's. He knew that if he got up and left, Dash would simply continue the torment outside of the protection of the school. "What do you want, Dash," he said again, ignoring Sam standing behind him.

"I _want_," Dash said quietly, "to watch you eat your lunch." The jock pushed Danny's tray slowly across the table until it was once again sitting nauseatingly right in front of Danny.

_How does he do that?_ Danny wondered distantly. _He never fails to pick the one thing I don't want to do. It's like some kind of sick talent_.

"He's not hungry," Sam put in angrily. "Come on, Danny."

"Is that going to be your answer?" Dash asked softly. His eyes drilled into Danny's, the smile on his face never wavering.

Danny could hear the unspoken words just fine. _You remember the consequence, right? Sam stays out of this as long as you cooperate_. He stared at Dash for another second, then turned his gaze down to his lunch. The cheeseburger was oozing and greasy, making his stomach churn and bile rise in his throat.

_It's just a cheeseburger. Everyone else ate the thing – you can too. Don't breathe in and get this stupid thing over with_. Danny reached down to pick up his lunch, feeling his fingers start to ache as his hand got closer. His eyes flickered up to meet Dash's for just a moment before he grabbed the cheeseburger.

Pain instantly flared up his arm and Danny jerked his hand away, sucking in a sharp breath of pain. _Why does it hurt?_ he complained to himself as he reached out again. _It's just a piece of food._

"You don't have to do this," Sam said furiously. "Danny."

_Yes I do._ Danny thought sullenly, ignoring his best friend. _I need to figure this out, Dash or no Dash_. His fingers, however, refused to grab the burger. His hand _burned_ as he held it over the lunch tray – it felt like his skin was being peeled away. Cursing softly in his mind, Danny yanked his hand back to him, quietly studying the lack of damage for a moment.

_I can't do it_. Danny stared down at the simple cheeseburger, unable to look up at his tormentor. _I can't… and I don't even know why not._

"You're a freak, Fenton," Dash laughed. "Can't even pick up a cheeseburger."

The laugh brought Danny's mind up short, his eyes widening. _Why's he laughing? _Danny tensed even as Dash moved.

"Let me help you with it," Dash sneered. His hand pushed roughly at the tray, sending the contents splattering onto Danny's shirt. It wasn't anything the jock hadn't done before, but this time it got a new reaction.

Danny instinctively jerked backwards when Dash pushed the tray, but with Sam and Tucker standing behind him and his feet hooked around the legs of his chair, Danny had nowhere to run. The small pile of cold fries pattered to the floor, the bun separating from the cheeseburger. The thin slab of processed cheese dropped straight onto Danny's bare arm.

There wasn't even a beat of silence. Danny's body instantly reacted to the cheese pressing against his skin. The pain was beyond anything he'd ever imagined or ever felt before. His body felt like it was being torn apart, molecule by molecule.

His body convulsed against the pain and he dropped heavily to the floor, almost unaware of the agonized scream that jumped out of his mouth.

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Tucker backpedaled in surprise, his own tray falling from his hands as his best friend screamed and collapsed to the ground, his heart jumping into his throat. "Danny!" He watched in shocked silence as Danny scrambled backwards away from the dropped lunches, his back slamming into one of the cafeteria walls, his eyes wide and his breath heaving in his chest, wiping furtively at his arm.

"Danny?" Sam said worriedly, brushing past Tucker to kneel next to him. "What's wrong?"

"I…" Danny trailed off, his face draining of whatever color it had left. Pasty white and shaking, he stared at Sam for a moment before turning his gaze to Tucker.

Tucker blinked a few times, then glanced quickly around the silent cafeteria. Dash seemed stunned and most everyone else was craning their necks curiously to see what had happened. A few tables away, Valerie Grey was on her feet with her hand pressed to her mouth. A teacher was already half-way across the lunchroom, headed in their direction.

"Freak," Dash murmured under his breath, easy to hear in the quiet room.

"What's going on?" the teacher asked, spotting Danny on the ground and heading over in his direction. "Are you okay?"

Tucker watched as Danny quietly nodded his head. "I… just…" He couldn't seem to come up with a reasonable thing to say, so instead he let his hair fall into his eyes and found his way to his feet. "Sorry."

The teacher's forehead furrowed, taking a step closer. "You're really pale. Why don't you go see the nurse and make sure you're okay?"

Danny shrugged and licked his lips. "Yeah. Okay."

"Tucker and I will walk him," Sam cut in, grabbing Danny's arm and herding him in the right direction.

Tucker, nodding in agreement, watched as Danny carefully skirted the lunch mess on the floor. He hesitated a moment, studying the scattered remains of their meals. _What happened?_ he wondered, his eyebrows knitting together as he stared down towards his feet. Fries were scattered everywhere, the greasy school cheeseburgers leaving ketchup smears on the ground.

"Come on, Tucker," Sam muttered as the two walked past him, headed towards the door.

"Yeah," Tucker whispered, tilting his head to the side for a moment, his eyes narrowing even further. _This isn't the first time I've seen him react to food. He acted weird with the fries at the Nasty Burger too. The cheesy fries._ His gaze locked on the cheeseburger and a small spark of understanding kindled inside of him. "Just a second." Uncaring about who was watching or what they were going to think, Tucker knelt down and picked up the cheesy remains of Danny's hamburger, carefully picking off a small piece of the semi-congealed cheese.

Grabbing a lose napkin and tucking the cheese inside, Tucker slipped it into a pocket before turning to catch up to his friends. _I wonder how that makes any sense. We'll just have to run a little test later to see if I'm right._

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Vlad let out a shaky breath as he slowly sank into the chair behind his desk. His eyes closed, he leaned back, stretching his muscles and allowing his body to get used to the almost constant ache that was associated with his home. It would only be a few hours before the pain melted into something he could ignore. Besides, to Vlad Masters, the pain was more than worth what he got from it.

He'd figured out years ago that – for reasons beyond his comprehension or logic – the scent of some forms of cheese caused pain to his ghost and allowed his human soul to be dominant. Years of testing and research had done little to clear up the mystery, other than coming to the conclusion that it had something to do with the bacteria and the rennin involved in curdling the cheese. Some combinations of bacteria and rennin caused insane amounts of pain, others induced a sort of nauseating stench… he'd found a wide variety of reactions. He ignored the confusion most days, merely content to know that his abnormality could be controlled in a relatively easy fashion.

That mystery, though, was the reason that he called this place 'home'. Over a hundred years previously, the castle-like building had been home to the dairy tycoon who had jumpstarted Wisconsin's cheese industry. Vlad had purchased the broken-down building years previously and had returned it to its proud glory. And, to keep it historically accurate, he kept plenty of varieties of cheese on the grounds. Due to that, when he was home, his ghost almost disappeared completely.

Of course, the fact that all the cheese chased away the hundreds of annoying ghosts that had once occupied the mansion was only a bonus in Vlad's mind. There were few other places on the planet he could visit and _not_ be bombarded by rotting rats, birds, and other small creatures.

His blue eyes opened and he relaxed, putting his feet up on his desk and lacing his fingers behind his head. "Only two meetings tomorrow," he muttered to himself. He normally would have had more, but he'd kept his schedule open in order to fit in meetings about his newly acquired Axion Labs… which he hadn't actually acquired. It would leave him with most of his afternoon free.

Sighing, Vlad reached out and picked up one of the lumps of cheese from the platter on his desk and studied it. His fingers still tingled like he'd dunked them in ice water, even with his ghost side depressed as far as it was. "I'm not looking forwards to having my afternoon free," he told the cheese. "I need something to keep my mind busy and off of… other things."

He popped the piece of cheese into his mouth, unable to get his mind off of the nameless boy now that he had come up with such a wonderful segue. "Why, why, why…" He grabbed another bit of cheese and rolled it between his fingers. "Twenty years of finding nobody like myself-"

A half-heard sound made him break off his musing and sit up. He glanced around his office, his forehead wrinkling as he tried to catch the faint noise the second time. When he heard the quiet, pained sound again, Vlad let an amused smile appear on his face. "Still around, huh?" he asked softly. "Come here."

He couldn't see the ghost that was making its way towards him, but Vlad knew that it was there. The remains of the Wisconsin Dairy King, still haunting the halls of its former home in an obsessive hunt for the perfect piece of cheese. Vlad had tried to chase the ghost away on many occasions, but had since given it up for a lost cause. The ghost was now an unending source of morbid amusement – as well as a constant reminder of how twisted and wrong his own ghost would be if given the chance to emerge.

Vlad held out the small ball of cheese between his fingers and forced a trickle of energy through his eyes. His eyes burned so badly he could barely see through the tears, but he could finally make out the form of the Dairy King.

The ghost was hunched, its eyes fixed on the small lump of cheddar in Vlad's fingers, the fake crown and ancient cape hanging in tatters around it. Obvious pain twisted the ghost's face into a startling grimace, but the obsessive glimmer never left its eye as it clawed its way closer. Closer and closer it drew, reaching out with its hand to grab the cheese, until pieces of its hand were actually beginning to be disintegrated by the force of the cheese's emanations. It wasn't until all that was left of the Dairy King's hand were a few wisps of ghost bone that the ghost gave up. With a banshee-like scream that rattled windows and had sent a hundred fourteen of Vlad's previous staff running, the ghost vanished.

Vlad shook his head, gratefully allowing the energy in his eyes to dissipate. He blinked the tears of pain out of his eyes and shook his head. "What fools we be," he whispered with a small chuckle. "You and me both, Chester."

Taking a bite of the chunk of cheddar, Vlad leaned back in his chair and rested his shoes on his desk. "You and me both," he repeated. "Masochistic idiots." Staring at his ceiling for a moment, he chewed silently, then sighed. "Three of us now, I suppose. The kid will probably be as bad as the two of us after awhile."

He let his mind drift, trying to force his mind to stay away from the half-ghost kid he'd found. He wasn't going to track the kid down. He wasn't going to obsess over some strange kid in a town hours away. He didn't even know the boy's name!

But his mind still drifted towards one of the empty guest suites on the second floor. "That'd make a good room for a teenager," he murmured, his eyes half-closed, the persistent ache of denying his ghost half settling into his bones, "if he ever wanted to come."

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Danny stared down at the floor of the nurse's office, wondering why the small room had a different color floor than the rest of the school. It briefly occurred to him that he'd spent a lot of time looking at floors recently to know something like that, but he pushed it from his mind with a sigh.

"You don't have a temperature," the nurse was muttering, pulling the thermometer from his ear. "In fact you're a bit chilled. Are you feeling okay?"

Danny shrugged, glancing up to see if he could locate his friends. Sam and Tucker had been politely thanked for carting him down here and had been shooed off almost as quickly. Sam had scowled, but Tucker had looked a bit relieved. He highly doubted either had headed back to the cafeteria though – they were probably sitting on a bench in the hallway, waiting for him.

"You're really pale." She touched his chin and looked into his eyes. Danny shivered and drew backwards, surprised at how uncomfortable he felt looking someone in the eyes. "And your eyes look glassy. Do you have a headache?"

Shaking his head, Danny fixed his gaze back onto his hands. _At least it doesn't smell so bad down here._ Just as he was thinking that, something flickered in the edge of his eye and Danny watched a small ghost rat crawl along the wall. _And there's a ghost. They must not like the smell either_.

He blinked, losing sight of the ghost. _That's it, isn't it?_ he thought with surprise. _The ghosts were missing from the cafeteria because they could smell what I could. _His arm and hand still burned, the ache only starting to vanish. _It probably hurts them too. _

"Have you been sick lately?"

Danny flinched at the sudden sound of the nurse's voice, but nodded. "I haven't felt good for a few days. I don't know what it is though."

She hummed under her breath, telling him to just stay seated for a moment and that she'd be right back. He nodded, not that she looked back long enough to see him do it, and settled back in the chair. _Whatever it was in the cafeteria, it really hurt._ A flash of movement to his left caught his attention, bringing the dead-looking rat back into focus. _I almost wish you could talk. Tell me what was happening._

Curling his aching fingers, Danny flexed his hand a few times. His mind drifted back to how it had felt, the burning sensation that had swamped through his whole hand. _I'm glad it wasn't worse. I might have passed out…_

His eyes widened. _Like I did in the woods._ Quickly lining up the memories in his mind, Danny compared how the cafeteria to the ache that had swamped through him in the woods. They were identical. _The man in the woods – the ghost guy – he knows what did it. He did it on purpose!_

Danny got to his feet in surprise, quickly peeking through a door to see the nurse chatting with the secretary, and slipped into the hallway. As expected, Sam and Tucker were sitting on a bench just across the hall. Both looked up at him. "You okay?"

"The ghost man in the woods," Danny said quickly, walking over to them and dropping onto the bench next to Sam, "he knows about this. The same kind of pain – it was in the woods too. He brought it with him."

Sam wrinkled her forehead. "I'm not following."

"The guy in the woods," Danny repeated. "The one who I was thinking was like me. He had this briefcase with him, I guess, and when we were talking he opened it and took something out. It made him less of a ghost – and it hurt, just like whatever it was in the cafeteria did today. It felt _exactly_ the same."

"Oh," Sam said softly.

"He was less of a ghost," Danny repeated, his eyes going unfocused as he thought about it. "It _fixed_ him. It made him normal." He looked up at Sam and Tucker, a smile on his face. "He knows what it is – he knows how to stop all this."

Tucker licked his lips and pulled something out of his pocket. "I think I know what it is too," he said.

Danny glanced down at the napkin in Tucker's hand. He leaned closer for a moment, the stench that had boiled through the cafeteria stinging his nose. "What is it?"

With a shrug, Tucker opened the napkin and showed Danny the small lump of cheese sitting in his hand.

"Is that cheese?" Danny's voice was flat with disbelief. "That makes no sense."_ That's idiotic. _Tucker just arched an eyebrow and moved his hand closer to Danny. Danny flinched backwards as the smell attacked his nose, making his stomach churn. "Okay, okay," Danny relented, pushing Tucker's hand away, "that's the smell. But it still makes no sense."

"Danny?" the nurse called, sticking her head out the door and spotting him on the bench. "Come here for a moment."

Danny exchanged a look with his friends and got to his feet. "Yeah?" he asked when he was closer.

"I'd like to call your parents and send you home for the day," she said simply.

"I don't have a fever…"

"You don't look well, Danny. Especially since you've been sick for a few days, I think it'd be better for you to go home and get some rest. Is it okay if I call your parents?"

Danny shrugged. "I have detention tonight," he argued weakly.

"You can go tomorrow." The nurse smiled and turned back towards the office. "I'll give them a call and see if they're willing to come pick you up. Have a seat _inside_ my office, please. I'm going to send your friends on their way."

Dropping onto the chair in the office, Danny sighed. "Great."

It took only a few minutes before she was back, a smile on her face. "Your dad's going to come get you," she said. She studied him for a moment. "And Mr. Lancer would like to talk to you for a moment before they show up, if that's okay."

Danny nodded sullenly. _Like I have a choice._

"He's in his office," she said, stepping out of the doorway and gesturing. "Why don't you go have a chat?

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Valerie stared at the spot where Danny Fenton had vanished through the cafeteria doors, her eyes wide and her face pale. "Fenton…?" she whispered.

"That was _excellent,_" Dash crowed, dropping into his seat. "Did you see him freak?"

"What a loser," Kwan cut in, chuckling and fist-bumping the quarterback. "What'd you do?"

"I dumped his lunch on him. He was probably afraid of a little ketchup stain."

The table burst out laughing, but Val just continued to stare blankly at the doors.

"Earth to Val," Dash said, waving his hand in front of Valerie's face and making her blink. "You in there?"

"Yeah," she breathed, then forced out a shaky laugh and a weak smile. "I'm in here."

Picking up a few of his fries, Dash began to describe what he'd done in detail, going on and on about how much the freak had begged him not to make him do anything. Val listened half-heartedly, smiling and giggling where appropriate for his story, absently fawning over how wonderful he was. But her mind wasn't really into it.

Not after what she'd just seen.

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"Have a seat, Mr. Fenton."

Danny sank into one of the chairs in Mr. Lancer's office, his eyes flickering around. He'd never been in the vice-principal's office before – it was a lot more drab than he'd been expecting. A few pictures on his desk, a diploma hanging on the wall, and a couple of hastily tacked-up things with the school emblem on them.

The vice-principal gazed at him for a moment. "You okay, Mr. Fenton?"

With a shrug, Danny turned his attention to studying the back of one of the pictures on Lancer's desk. "The nurse is sending me home, so I suppose not."

"I mean not just sick," the balding man tried again. "This past week you've been really… _off_. And you got two detentions today."

Swallowing, Danny shrugged again. "Having a bad week, that's all."

"Everything okay at home?"

Danny jerked up to stare at his part-time teacher, part-time vice-principal. "Yeah," he said, confused. "Why?"

The teacher studied him. "Sometimes, when a teenager is having a 'bad week' it's because of something going on at home – parents fighting or a close relative getting really sick or something."

"Everything's fine at home," Danny said sullenly. _They won't listen to me and I'm grounded for something I couldn't help, but that's all. _"I'm just sick, I think."

Lancer made a noise in the back of his throat. "I'm going to cancel the detention you received for not having your homework done. You'll have to make up the other one when you get back."

"Thanks," Danny said softly.

"If you ever need to talk to someone, I can help you set up an appointment to talk to a councilor, you know that, right?"

Danny nodded. _I wonder how a school councilor would take the truth about what's going on with me_. The thought brought a small, sad smile to his face. _They'd probably lock me up in a nut house somewhere._

"We're worried about you," Lancer said, standing up and obviously ending the impromptu meeting. "I hope your 'bad week' turns around soon."

"Me too," Danny replied, stepping out into the office and finding a seat to wait for his parents to pick him up. "Me too."

In _real life_, secrets aren't so easy to keep.

(end chapter 15)


	17. Family Pays Too Much Attention

_Thank Obi's bribery and the awesome Erik's Protégé, who betaed this for me at least twice, for this update…  
_

**Real Life**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

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Chapter 16

In Which Family Pays Too Much Attention

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Danny slumped into the passenger seat of his parents' car, letting his eyes fall closed. The car groaned when his father sank into the driver's seat and Danny allowed his mind to drift. For some reason he still couldn't put his finger on, he didn't really _want_ to go home. But the thought of holding off the coming torment of his classmates over what had happened at lunch, at least for one more day, was definitely a good reason to not complain.

"You okay, Danno?" Jack asked.

_Something_ tickled against his nerves, a vague warmth, but Danny pushed it away and forced himself to be as human as possible. He wasn't going to feed on his father's emotions. Ever. He slowly pushed himself more upright and buckled his seat belt. "Yeah," he answered a little belatedly. "I'm just tired, I guess."

Jack nodded, turning the key and listening to the car growl to life. "Probably should have stayed home today, huh? Your mother wasn't too happy when the school called."

"Maybe." Danny looked out the window, watching the trees start to slide past them, fully aware of the fact that he wouldn't have stayed home even if it have been an option. He needed to get away from the constant drone of the portal and the worried looks his mother was sending him, and at least attempt to talk to the only two people on the planet who had any idea what was going on.

The whole day had, of course, collapsed around him. Things seemed to like to do that recently – it was like he was a giant magnet for the worst luck on the planet. Crossing his arms and slouching back in the seat, he just blinked dismally when his father rolled through a stop sign, his usual quips about Jack's bad driving skills dying deep in his throat. _I'm tired._

The realization struck like a gong inside of him. It wasn't just physically tired from the lack of sleep the night before or the lack of food – it was an all-over tiredness that pervaded his mind and body. Emotionally he was strung out, unable to focus, and just about ready to give up. After nearly a week of everything happening nonstop, Danny was simply ready to be finished with it all.

He couldn't even dredge up much enthusiasm about the fact that the strange man from the woods probably knew what was wrong with him. The odds of finding one nameless, faceless man in the entire world were stacked against him. _Besides_, Danny figured as he let out a slow breath_, that guy was creepy. He might know what's wrong with me, but he really hurt me before he vanished. I'm not sure I'd want to find him even if I could._

His teachers had noticed that something was wrong, his parents were worried, his friends were trying to help but not coming up with much… Danny had the feeling that the world was crashing down around him and he wanted nothing more than to curl up someplace and forget it all for awhile. No ghosts, no rotting dogs, no random confusing problems, no uncontrollable powers, no nothing.

"What happened at lunch?"

Danny glanced over at his father and shrugged. "Not sure," he said honestly. "Dash was… being Dash and I overreacted."

"Dash Baxter?"

"Yeah," Danny answered softly. "Dash Baxter, football star."

They were both silent for a few minutes after that, blocks passing quickly by them as they threaded their way through town. Danny just allowed himself to float in his mind, ready to go home and go to bed – maybe pop a few of those Tylenol in his mother's sock drawer to help him sleep. He no longer cared what kind of nightmares would come out the darkness of his mind to haunt him, he was simply too tired to worry about it.

It wasn't until they pulled into the driveway that either of them broke the quiet. "You know," Jack said, "when I was trying to figure out how to put together the ghost proto-portal, I thought it would be this huge, impossible job. I gave up before I really got started."

Danny blinked out of his stupor and looked at his father with a raised eyebrow, confused as to why Jack was choosing to bring this up now. "Yeah?"

"I never would have gotten anywhere with it if it wouldn't have been for your mother. Mads sat me down and told me that a mile is a long way to walk but each step is easy." A faint grin was on his father's face as he spoke. "I can still remember how she looked at me and told me that. 'One step at a time,' she said."

Danny stared at his father in complete bewilderment. Those strange emotion-smells were beginning to stain the air again, sharp and warm around his father, and Danny was too tired to even attempt to stave them off. "I've got no clue why you're telling me this," he said, unbuckling his seat belt and climbing out of the car.

"Danny."

He stopped and twisted around as his father slammed the car door, tipping his head to the side. "What?"

Jack walked up to him and set a hand on his shoulder, turning him back around and shepherding him towards the front door. The warm emotions drifting through the air suddenly increased in volume, burrowing under Danny's skin and giving him an unconscious burst of energy. He fidgeted and shuffled his feet, waiting for his father to make his point.

"Mads is right about a lot of things, that's why I married her. She said you look like you've got the weight of the world on your shoulders or some sort of huge problem you can't figure out, and she's right, you know."

Fighting back a snort at the obviousness of that statement, Danny watched his father unlock the door and step inside before following. He kicked his shoes off and headed for the stairs. A very soft bed was waiting upstairs, far enough away from his parents and the portal to hopefully get him a good few hours of sleep. "I'll figure it out," he mumbled.

"I know you will, you're my son," he said with a smile and a nudge with his elbow. "But whatever it is, just take it a step at a time, right?"

"Right," Danny said slowly, not entirely following what his father was trying to say. The large man seemed to take the answer at face value, however, throwing the car keys onto the table by the door and vanishing into the kitchen without another word.

Slipping upstairs, Danny dropped onto his bed and stared up at the ceiling. Throwing an arm over his eyes to block out some of the light, Danny simply let go of all of his troubles and tumbled into sleep.

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Valerie Grey grabbed her backpack from her locker after the final bell and practically raced away from school. She hated cheeseburger days. She had long since grown use to the fact that there was something about cheese that simply stank – it was almost unavoidable – but there was something about the cheap lunchroom version of cheese that made it worse than any other variety she'd come across. The stench had followed her all day and was now clinging to her clothes.

The only good thing that came with cheeseburger day was the lack of creatures that followed people around. By the time second hour had started, all but the slowest of them had seemingly vanished off the face of the Earth. She didn't know where they ran off to, but she didn't particularly care. A day of being creature-free was _almost_ worth the torment of that smell. As long as she breathed through her mouth, she could pretend that she was blessedly, happily _normal_.

And then there was Danny Fenton and the small question of what it was that she'd _seen_.

"Valerie!"

She hesitated at the sound of her name and glanced over her shoulder. Her eyes passed over the boy that was calling her name a few times before focusing on him. It was Danny Fenton's best friend – the one with the red hat. She waited only a heartbeat more before turning back around and continuing on her way.

After today, she didn't want to talk. She wanted to go home and take a shower and try to think through what it was she had seen and what it all meant. Was it possible that-

"Valerie, wait up!" he called, jogging up to her, breathing hard.

Valerie silently picked up the pace, annoyed that he'd interrupted her thoughts. She had avoided all of her friends for a reason. There was nothing that was going to stop her from getting home as quickly as possible.

"Hold on, I have to ask you something," he panted.

"Don't you have someone else to bother?" Val asked sourly, never pausing as the boy caught up to her and had to keep jogging to keep pace.

An odd look crossed his face and he pushed his glasses up his nose, obviously taking her sarcastic question seriously. "Sam's in detention and Danny went home early."

Val actually stopped for a moment at this, wondering if he really only had two friends, but then shook herself and kept walking. She wasn't interested in what he had to say. She was interested in getting home and getting rid of this stench.

"I wanted to ask you about your drawings," he said.

The incredulous feeling that fluttered through her made Val's steps falter for a moment. _What drawings does he mean? _she wondered, curiosity getting the better of her desire to be alone. _I don't draw… _She glanced at him and said, "I don't draw."

Tucker's eyes flickered left and right, then let a little smile cross his face. "The little animals that you draw," he said softly. "The dead ones. The ghosts."

"Shut up." The harsh words were out of Val's mouth before she really knew what she was saying. Her eyes narrowed and she turned to walk away from him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

She did though. For years, she had kept her little doodles a secret. Her father thought that assignments with pieces of the margins torn out were normal. No one had ever found out that she saw things that didn't really exist and they weren't going to start now. _How could he possibly know about those? _she screamed to herself.

"Rotting little snakes and rats and things."

Valerie walked faster, her heart starting to beat in her ears, but Tucker's voice was following her, cutting through her defenses.

"They follow humans around and feed off of them, don't they? You can see them."

_I have to put a stop to this._ Valerie twirled around and stuck a finger in Tucker's face. He'd been almost running to keep up with her and he skidded to a stop, his nose less than an inch from Val's sharp fingernails. "Stop stalking me," she hissed. "And stop talking nonsense."

He blinked at her and looked a little confused. "I'm not talking-"

"Stop," she snapped. "I'm not going to talk about invisible little things with you."

His head tipped back a little and his eyes narrowed. "I never said they were invisible."

_Damnit_! Her fingers curled into a fist and Val bit back a growl, skillfully twisting her growing fear into fury. "If you don't _shut up_ and leave me alone, you will learn first-hand what a black belt in karate can do." She look the widening of his hazel eyes as all the answer she needed, twirled around on her heel, and stalked up the street.

The terrified anger melted away after just a few steps, leaving her knees feeling weak and her hands shaking. She crossed her arms tightly, her mind twirling. There was no way that people were going to find out she saw things that didn't exist. She was normal, not crazy, and no one was going to ruin that for her.

She caught sight of him one last time, reflected in a store window, before she turned the corner onto her street. He was still standing where she'd left him, one arm casually hooked around the strap of his backpack, a look of concern on his face. Finally turning the corner, Val leaned up against the side of a building and took a few deep breaths, struggling to get her emotions back under control.

"Everything's fine," she whispered. Perhaps that Danny Fenton had seen something – perhaps he could even see the ghosts too. And probably a couple loner kids like Tucker Foley and Danny Fenton wouldn't tell the whole school about what she could see.

She still had her secret. She was still okay. But no matter how many times she told herself that, her hands refused to stop shaking.

For some reason, she had the horrible feeling that years of lies and pretending to be normal were about to come crashing down around her.

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Maddie chewed on her lip, staring down at the mess of wires jammed haphazardly inside the Fenton's latest invention and barely containing her annoyed sigh. "Jack, we've talked about this," she said. "If you don't keep the wires looking neat, how are we ever going to figure out where the problem lies?"

The large man looked up at her from his pile of blueprints and blinked a few times before mumbling out an incomprehensible answer. Based on previous experience, Maddie figured he'd either just apologized, explained what had happened, or promised to fix it later. Or perhaps, she thought, he had slurred together all three.

With a small roll of her eyes, Maddie settled down to start tracing the intricate circuits in the prototype energy weapon. The goal was to create a sort of TAZER on steroids – a nonlethal weapon with enough punch to short-circuit an armored vehicle. Never mind the fact that they hadn't yet figured out how to create a battery with enough juice to power the thing and still have it be considered a handheld weapon, if they could get the rest of it working, she was confident that the battery would come with time.

Tracing the interwoven wires was proving to be a maze that Maddie wasn't in the mood to tackle, however. The eighth time she lost track of the wire she was following, she pushed the device away from her and let out a long, frustrated breath. "I'm going to go get a drink," she told her husband, not caring that he never glanced up from his sketching.

She slipped off her stool and quietly walked upstairs to the kitchen. Snagging a clean-looking glass from the sink, she filled it with water before pulling herself up to sit on the counter and sip her water. Her eyes traced around the familiar lines of her kitchen, catching for a moment on the two tiles under the table that _still_ hadn't been replaced after that last experiment cracked them, before settling on the entry to the living room.

"Danny," she breathed, finally allowing her thoughts to travel in the direction they'd been wanting to go down all day. "What's wrong?"

He wasn't there to answer and she was positive he wouldn't have answered honestly anyways. At most, she'd get a repeat of that 'ghost' explanation from earlier. How could he possibly think that she'd believe that? Danny was not dead and, even though she knew that she didn't always pay as much as a good mother would, he was not a ghost. It was a _ludicrous _explanation.

She ran a hand through her hair and set her empty glass back in the sink. "What was he thinking?" she whispered. "Playing with our experiments? Lying to me like that? Running away, disappearing randomly…"

This morning, before he'd left for school, he'd looked almost dead on his feet. He'd refused to eat any breakfast and had slunk out of the house with a pale, depressed look on his face. It hadn't really surprised her to get a call from the school asking them to come pick Danny up.

Maddie's eyes drifted over to the phone, contemplating calling the doctor to set up an appointment, but she dismissed it with a shake of her head. Maybe he just needed to get some sleep – he hadn't been sleeping well lately. "If he's not looking better tomorrow, I'll call."

The plan setting her mind slightly at ease, Maddie slide off the counter, paced towards the living room, stepped over Danny's discarded shoes and backpack, and walked up the stairs. She paused outside her son's room, then pushed lightly on the half-closed door and slipped inside. He was curled up, his black hair messily falling across his face, and he was deeply asleep.

Maddie took a few steps and knelt down beside the bed, reaching up to run her hand over his forehead to move the hair out of his eyes. Frowning at how cold his skin felt, Maddie gazed at her son, threading her fingers lightly through his hair. His skin had an unhealthy pale sheen and his lips were tinted a strange purplish color.

She studied him for a long moment more before changing her mind about waiting to call the doctor. Getting to her feet, Maddie got an extra blanket out of the hall closet and draped it over Danny's sleeping form before walking downstairs to make an appointment for her son to see the doctor.

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"Macaroni and cheese, cheese fries, cheeseburgers…" Danny muttered a few hours later, feeling better after his nap. He stepped into the kitchen and, after glancing around, let a small smile appear on his face when he found the room empty. Pacing over to the lab door, Danny pressed his ear against the door and listened for his parents' voices. "Sister in her room, parents in the lab… Perfect."

Danny walked up to the refrigerator and stared at it for a moment. He shifted his weight uneasily on his feet, biting his lip. "Oh, come on Fenton," he chided himself. He reached out to grab the handle to the refrigerator, gritting his teeth in frustration when his hand passed straight through the handle.

Focusing on the handle and the fact that his hand _was_ going to touch the door, Danny extended his arm for a second time, this time catching hold of the refrigerator. He breathed out once and pulled the door open, studying the insides. "Where… is…" His eyes scanned through the shelves. "Ah."

Danny grabbed the package of cheese, quietly closing the door before walking up to the kitchen table and dropping the cheese onto the table. He sank into a chair opposite the unoffending package and stared at it. The thought of actually opening the plastic wrap made his stomach churn.

For a moment, his mind was filled with the memories of the other times he'd tried to eat this particular food. How his fingers had ached at the Nasty Burger. How he had felt like he was being jabbed with needles during supper that one night. How his body had physically rebelled against him at lunch. How Tucker had held up that small little bit of cheese, proving that it was the source of the smell.

"One step at a time," he muttered. "Figure out one thing at a time." Trying to get a hold of everything was just too much. But this one small thing maybe he could figure out. Was it, or was it not, the cheese that he was reacting to?

"It doesn't make sense." Danny's fingers tapped on the table as he stared at the yellowish cube wrapped in plastic. "It's a _food_, just like milk. I had milk in my cereal this morning." He took a breath and shook his head. "It's got to be something else."

He grabbed the package of cheese and brought it closer to him, his fingers picking at the plastic wrap's opening. "It doesn't hurt _now_, and it's not going to hurt when I open it."

He let out a deep breath. "It's just cheese."

Closing his eyes, he pulled at the plastic wrap. For a fraction of a moment, nothing happened and Danny felt himself start to relax. But then pain slammed into him like he'd done a belly-flop into a pool… only it kept coming. Wave after wave of prickling agony sliced into his body, forcing a gasp out of his throat and his arms to reflexively push at the table.

When the pain finally started to fade, Danny opened his eyes and looked around in startled disbelief. He was on the other side of the kitchen, pressed up against the wall. He took a shaky breath, the throbbing ache degrading into something almost nauseating. His stomach spinning into freefall, Danny struggled to steady his breathing.

"Okay," he whispered. "Tucker's right. It's the cheese."

Jazz suddenly appeared in the doorway, worry on her face. Her eyes took in the toppled kitchen chair before flicking to her brother. "Danny? Are you okay?"

Danny let out a small chuckle that he didn't really feel, smiling faintly. "Yeah. I just… saw something," he lied. He swallowed heavily, fighting down a wave of prickling nausea that threatened to bring up his lunch.

"Danny, maybe you should sit down," Jazz suggested softly. "You look like you're going to faint."

"I'm fine," Danny said sourly.

"Yeah," Jazz muttered, "right. I'm going to go get Mom."

"No!" Danny took a few shaky steps towards his sister, getting in between her and the lab. He forced himself to ignore the cheese sitting on the table and the aching sensation that was swamping his body. "Seriously. I'm good. I just… need something to eat."

When Jazz faltered at that explanation, Danny's smile became a bit less forced. "I didn't get any lunch today, remember?" he continued. "I'm just hungry. You don't need to bug Mom and Dad just because I'm hungry."

"Oh," she said. Her narrowed, suspicious eyes never left his, but she stopped reaching for the lab door. "Why were you up against the wall like that?" she asked.

"I saw something, remember?" Danny gave her the most innocent grin he could find. "A mouse, I think."

"Big reaction for a little mouse."

Danny shrugged and licked his lips. "Big mouse."

Jazz blinked a few times and Danny swallowed, worried that she wouldn't take the story he was feeding her. It was plausible… but only barely. Finally she took a step backwards, turning to pick up the chair Danny had bowled over in his instinctive bid to get away from the cheese sitting on the table. "I'll make you something to eat," she said softly, "being that you're so afraid of the mouse."

Danny swore softly to himself. Based on the tone of her voice, his sister had figured out that Danny was lying through his teeth. He smiled vaguely when she glanced up at him, but had to keep rolling with his story. If she wasn't going to call him on it, then he wasn't going to admit to anything. "No, it's okay. I can make something."

She quietly picked up the half-opened package of cheese on the table. "No big deal, little brother. I'm kinda hungry too. You want a cheese sandwich? I know how much you love those." She turned towards him and held out the cheese.

Before Danny could stop himself, his body had taken a few steps backwards, his back coming up hard against the door to the lab. Another prickling wave of pain swept through him when Jazz waved the block of cheese in the air and Danny shuddered. "No… no… I-I-I think I should wait… for supper," he stuttered, unable to wrench his eyes of the innocuous substance that was causing him so much pain.

"But you said-"

"That I'm fine," Danny interrupted, edging towards the freedom of the living room. "Don't be such a worrywart, Jazz." Every step made the torture of the cheese lessen. Danny hesitated by the door, finally able to pull his eyes off the yellow package of cheese and gaze into his sister's confused face. He smiled once – knew instantly that it had done nothing but cement his sister's belief that something weird was going on – turned and fled up the stairs to his room.

He fell into the relative safety of his bed, cursing in his mind. Could he have been any more _obvious_? What was he thinking, experimenting and trying to figure things out inside of his own house – especially when his nosy sister was home? It had to have been one of the stupidest things he'd done in a very long while.

A knock on his bedroom door startled him out of his reverie. Danny looked up, paling a little when he saw his sister standing in the doorway. She studied him for a moment, the gestured with the plate she was holding in her hand. "I heard what happened at lunch."

"Yeah," Danny answered wearily, studying the sandwich on the plate and waiting for the pain he figured was coming.

"Must be some invasion of mice you're seeing," she said softly.

"Infestation," Danny breathed.

Jazz dropped the plate onto the dresser by the door and stood silently for a few more seconds. "Mom said dinner was going to be late today, so you should have something to eat."

"Thanks." Danny glanced from his sister to the plate, wondering how he was going to get the cheese sandwich out of his room without attracting attention. He couldn't feel it yet, but he was sure that if he got any closer, the pain would start again.

Nodding towards the plate, Jazz said, "It's peanut butter and jelly." Then, without another word, turned and left.

Danny sat still on his bed for a few minutes, gazing blankly at his empty doorway. When he finally got up, he walked over to the plate and blinked down at the messily made sandwich. It was, indeed, peanut butter and jelly.

He was going to have to be a _lot_ more careful around his sister from now on. And, he conceded when his stomach growled hungrily, perhaps a little nicer.

In _real life_, family pays too much attention.

--

_Thank you to Javagirl1992, dragondancer123, Donteatacowman, InvaderJohnny, chalicity, A.W., doodlekitt, Kesomon, Nano Phantom, lazy evil, yourlover, potterinu, Gernet Sky, Chaotia, kinitsukirihan, Eromancer, dizappearingirl, Electrified, bbfan77, Howl To The Moon, serin2, ArellaoftheLuvara, GeekGirl2, Pixi dust of doom, Oats-FFCC27, Jideni3, tanith-4486, skitzofrenic, Thunderstorm101,__ kdm13, mountainelements, Hiei's Cute Girl, BluFox15, Aytheria, Fulcon, ythena, Kiomori, Nylah, phantomphreak09, FreakLevel27, Anne Camp aka Obi-Quiet, and bloodmoon13 for the awesome reviews!_

_Never give up. Never surrender._

_Till next time, don't give up on the busy and lazy authoress. :) I promise I'll finish the story!  
_

_-Cori  
_


	18. Suspicions Tend to Grow

_ I shall not mention how many HOURS of work I put into editing this over the weekend so it'd be up today. But it was a lot. This chapter is way different from what it was three days ago - a piece of junk. :) We'll also not mention that this has been done since November and has been sitting, unedited, on my desktop...  
_

_Happy Birthday Shining-Zephyr! This is for you._

* * *

**Real Life**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

Chapter 17  
In Which Suspicions Tend to Grow

* * *

"This is just stupid."

The pure stupidity of what showed up on some websites never failed to disgust Jazz Fenton. "Who would believe any of this?" She wrinkled her nose in disbelief when she noted the 'visitor counter' at the bottom displayed a number in the tens of thousands.

With a disappointed sigh, Jazz clicked out of the website and headed back to Google to start over. She sat there for a long moment, her fingers tapping pointlessly against the edges of the keyboard, staring at the empty search box. Finally she closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. "What to search for?"

She was hitting nothing but dead ends in her attempt to figure out what was wrong with her younger brother. The 'List of Freaky' had grown to an insane length, the notebook seeming to mock her every time it caught her eye.

Jazz Fenton was smart. Jazz Fenton figured things out faster than anyone else in her grade. Jazz Fenton rarely failed to solve a problem in her life. Her G.P.A. proved that.

…But Jazz Fenton was stumped.

"Glowing eyes," she muttered, grabbing her notebook and scanning the list once more. "That could have just been a trick of the light. But when his hand disappeared in the hallway at school? The sudden way he reacts around…" she trailed off, thinking over lunch and his strange behavior an hour previously. "Around cheese?"

She shook her head in frustration. "If he's seeing mice, I'll eat Bearbert." Shooting a glance towards the old teddy bear, she looked back down at the list. "Magic tricks?" she wondered softly.

Her eyes drifted back to the word she had circled at the library. His friends' sudden interest in ghosts… could it possibly be connected? "Ghosts…"

She sat there for the longest time, her eyes trained on that one word, the gears in her mind working their way around in circles. Ghosts don't exist. Her parents' decades of failed experiments had proved that fact to anyone with half a brain. Up until rather recently, she'd been positive that Danny shared her opinion on the matter. Zombies you could get him to believe in. Blood-sucking Santa Clauses, no sweat. Not ghosts, though.

Setting down her notebook, she turned back to the computer. "Sudden change in behavior," she read aloud as she typed. Then, rather on a whim, she added the word 'ghosts' to the end and clicked search.

"Possession?" She blinked at the screen, staring at the top few search results, confused. "Danny's not possessed…"

She ran her tongue over her teeth and tapped her finger on her mouse. "But what if his friends think so?"

* * *

Tucker was sitting on the steps to the school when Sam finally stalked out, her eyes dull from an extra hour of boredom. "I hate detention," she said darkly.

"Yes, you do," Tucker replied without looking up from his game. "You should stop getting it." Sam didn't stop to sit with him, so he shrugged and got up, turning off his game and stuffing it into his backpack. "Where to?"

"I need a shake," she mumbled, heading towards the Nasty Burger with a zombie-like quality to her walk. "Soy, low-fat, double strawberry, with one of those extra-wide straws that doubles as a spoon."

Falling into step with her, Tucker raised an eyebrow. "Soy and low-fat takes all the fun out of it, you realize that, right?"

She sent him a half-hearted glare, but ended up just sighing and running a hand through her frizzy black hair. "What'd you find out?"

"She denied everything," Tucker said readily. "She can't see anything, she knows nothing, and she was one step away from tying me into a pretzel before she stormed off."

Sam snorted. "So you were right about Valerie?"

Nodding, Tucker let a grin appear on his face. "I'd be willing to bet a month's allowance on it. She can see something, I know it."

"Do we tell Danny?"

Tucker's grin vanished and he let his gaze fall to the sidewalk. That particular question had been running through his head for the past hour. The stressed look on his best friend's face – the fact that he'd actually been _sent home _because of it – really seemed to say that the less Danny needed to worry about, the better. "If Valerie really can see something, how can we not tell him?" he said slowly. "He needs to talk to someone that'll understand."

Sam crossed her arms across her chest as she walked, letting a huge breath escape noisily out her nose. "What about Vlad Masters?"

"We don't have any proof, remember," Tucker replied, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "Just what you think you remember feeling."

"I have just as much proof about Masters as you do about Valerie," she shot back. "If we're going to tell him about one of them he really should know about both of them."

His eyes trained on the sidewalk passing under his feet, Tucker felt a frown drift onto his face. Both of them were quiet for nearly a block when Tucker finally looked up. "Do you honestly think telling Danny will help him?"

"I don't know," she said softly. "But keeping secrets from him…?"

"You saw him. He doesn't need anything more to think about right now." Tucker took a deep breath and shook his head. "I want to _help_ Danny and I'm not sure if telling him about Masters and Valerie will help or hurt him."

Tucker watched Sam wrinkle her nose and scowl. "Think about it, Sam," he said after a moment of silence, "Danny's got tons on his plate right now – he's barely making it through just _surviving_. I don't want him to snap. Especially if we're wrong; what would he do if he talked to Valerie and I wasn't right?"

Sam's jaw clenched. "It's not our decision whether or not he should talk to them," she said, but there wasn't any conviction in her voice.

Nodding, Tucker walked along, chewing on his tongue and turning the ideas over in his head. "We could talk to his parents."

Purple eyes looked into his, the girl's distrust of adults showing in her wary gaze. "What good would that do?"

"Danny tried to tell them. Maybe we could back up his story."

Sam looked away, her hands tight on the straps of her backpack, quiet for nearly a block. "I don't think he really wants them to know, Tucker," she finally said just as they reached the doors to the Nasty Burger. "I think he's just scared or stressed or something." Her hiking boots crunched on the dirty sidewalk, her feet scuffing now and then. "I think," she hesitated and took a deep breath. "I know Danny. I think that, given the choice, he wouldn't want them to know."

Tucker silently agreed with her, but his mouth opened and he said, "Is what he _wants_ best for him?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she yanked open the doors and walked up to the counter, ordering her strawberry milkshake before Tucker had a chance to decide what he'd like. He'd just settled on an order of chili fries when Sam suddenly said, "No."

Both the girl taking their orders and Tucker looked at her, Tucker arching his eyebrow questioningly. "No, what?" he asked when she didn't elaborate.

It looked like the words were being wrenched from Sam's throat. "No. What he wants isn't what's best for him."

Tucker stared at her in surprise. "Seriously? This from the queen of 'personal decisions' and 'no secrets'?"

Her hands clenched into fists. "You're right this time. He doesn't need to know until we know for sure. We'll get proof, then we'll tell him."

"Five seventy-three, please," the girl behind the counter cut in and Tucker twisted around to pay her. He stuffed his hands into his pockets, digging for the remainder of his allowance. When he unfolded the mess of dollars, a note tucked into the bills fluttered to the floor. Tucker knelt down to pick it up, then paid the girl while he contemplated the contents of the note.

He shook his head when Sam reached into her backpack for a few dollars to pay for the milkshake, mumbling that it was his turn to pay, then looked up at her. "Can we jump to a new topic?"

"Sure…" she said, settling her backpack back onto her shoulders.

"Danny and I are still waiting for an idea of what you want for your birthday."

The purple-eyed girl blinked. "What?"

"Your birthday. It's, like, three days away."

She tipped her head to the side before her eyes widened. "Oh," she said in surprise. "I forgot it was…" she trailed off and shrugged. "With everything that's going on, it's not really worth making a big deal over."

"Nonsense," Tucker said as he grabbed both their orders and headed towards their normal table, confident that she'd catch up. "We're going to throw you a party like we always do." At least, Tucker thought they were going to. Danny probably hadn't given a second thought to Sam's birthday all week. "If you don't say anything," he said when she stayed silent, "we'll get you something weird like we did three years ago."

"I don't want anything," she said, shaking her head. When Tucker opened his mouth to complain, she rolled her eyes and continued, "No, seriously, Tucker. All I want is a couple hours of normalcy after this seriously messed up week. If I could have that, I'd be the happiest person in the world."

Tucker snorted a little, knowing how hard that present would be to give to her. But he smiled and stuffed the note back into his pocket. "So you have wish it," he slowly intoned, "so shall it be."

Sam scowled at him. "There's no such thing as wishes," she said and snatched her shake out of Tucker's hand. She took a long drink, closing her eyes in delight. "Now, how are we going to get this proof from Valerie?

The two of them settled at their table, plotting various ways of getting one of the most popular girls in school to admit to a group of 'losers' that she could see ghosts. It didn't take long for Tucker to quietly figure he should have ordered a larger basket of chili fries.

* * *

Fighting off a tired yawn, Danny slunk down to supper. His body and mind were still exhausted, but his stomach was painfully informing him that he needed something to eat despite his lack of energy. Other than the sandwich his sister had brought to him a few hours earlier, he'd had nothing to eat since the bowl of ice cream the day before.

He felt his family's presence before he stepped into the kitchen. He stood in the doorway, his eyes downcast, leaning tiredly against the doorframe. His mother was filling the room with the scent of apples as she bustled around, his father was messing with a small something at the kitchen table giving off the smell of circuits and ozone, and his sister was lost behind a book, tingeing the air with cinnamon. The scents were more than just smells – they were feelings, emotions, entire _stories_ – and over it all was the ever-present buzz of the ghost portal in the basement.

He wasn't a ghost; he wasn't even in 'dead' mode. He was his 'normal' human self and he could still feel them. With every day that passed, his ghost side was making itself more and more known. His eyes slid closed and he sighed.

"Danny?"

Looking up at his mother's voice, Danny tried for a smile before slipping to the kitchen table. She stopped next to him when he dropped heavily into his seat, studying him. "You're not going to school tomorrow," she said firmly.

Danny thought about that for a moment, then decided another day of sleep was probably one of the best ideas his mother had come up with in years. He nodded quietly and looked towards the table full of food, his stomach growling in appreciation. A mound of barbequed chicken was steaming on the table next to a bowl of mashed potatoes.

"I made you a doctor's appointment as well," she added as she sat down in her own seat.

Danny, who'd been reaching for the spoon sitting in the mashed potatoes, visibly froze. His head jerked up to stare at his mother in disbelief. "What?"

"You haven't been eating," she said patiently, taking a few wings of chicken and setting them onto her plate. "You haven't been sleeping, you had that horrible nightmare, and you're starting to look really run down. I just want to make sure you don't have some kind of virus."

"But…" he started, then trailed off. The thought of going to the doctor had never crossed his mind. Now that it had – and it was belatedly obvious that his parents would come up with it sooner or later – Danny's mind was racing. He was turning into a _ghost_, for crying out loud. What kind of strange things would a doctor turn up? "But…"

Her eyes bored into his. "It's just a checkup, Danny," she said simply.

"I don't need to go to the doctor," he argued. Unfortunately, there was no doubt in his mind that it was a very weak argument. He'd seen himself in the mirror plenty of times over the past couple days. "I just need to get some sleep."

His mother just smiled. Danny heaped a mountain of potatoes onto his plate with a scowl.

"In other news," his father said, grabbing the spoon and bowl of potatoes from Danny's hand, "we finally got enough baseline data on the portal to start doing our experiments!" The sharp scent of burning metal was tinged with crackles of lighting, which something inside of Danny realized was excitement.

"Yay." Danny took a bite, chewing absently as he listened to his father ramble about what he was planning to do. Most of it passed right over his head, but when Danny heard something that sounded suspiciously like 'making the energy output of the portal stronger', he sat up. "You're going to make it louder?

Jack trailed off and both his parents blinked at his interruption. "Louder?" his mother asked.

"More powerful," he corrected quickly.

"Yep!" Jack said, pleased. "One of the reasons we built the portal was to make it into a clean energy source. If we can get the levels up enough, we could completely power this house with free energy."

With a sigh, Danny sank back into his chair and grabbed a leg of barbequed chicken, watching his parents chatter back and forth about the portal's potential. The world felt a little like it was falling apart at that moment. The buzzing of the portal was about to get more annoying, tomorrow he was going to be dragged to the doctor and…

And…

Danny's head tipped to the side a little and he focused down on his chicken. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad, after all. Maybe the doctor would be able to find a way to convince his parents that something was wrong…

The thought trailed off almost as soon as it started, Danny shaking his head. No. If the doctor found something weird, he had no idea what would happen. It would be better not to chance it. He'd have to convince his mother that it really wasn't worth it. But how?

Proof, that's what he'd need to give them. He licked his lips as the plan germinated in his head. He'd stay up all night, practice and get a handle on one of these new abilities, and tomorrow he'd show them.

He looked up at his parents, chewing slowly on his chicken. It was hard to understand why they still didn't believe him – didn't even want to _listen_ to him anymore. He'd had these strange ghost powers for a week now, and he wasn't any closer to getting them to understand.

Almost distantly, he set down the barbequed chicken and wiped his fingers a napkin, feeling odd. He was full. His stomach was clearly telling him that he'd eaten enough food and that if he tried to stick more in, he'd be threatening the lengths his stomach could stretch. And yet, he was still starving. His mouth was watering and he wanted to eat… _something_.

Blue eyes drifted across the table, searching. Why was he still feeling like he was starving? What was it he wanted?

Without warning, the world tipped around him and everything went fuzzy. Danny blinked, about to push against it and force the strange dead-mode away from his mind, when he suddenly froze. His head jerked around to stare in pure amazement as _something_ brushed up against his senses. It was nothing but those wisps of emotions, but for a reason Danny couldn't understand, they felt so much… more than usual.

_Hot apples over a fire, the smell of electricity fizzing through a new circuit board, the gooey smell of cinnamon cookies on a cold day_.

It took him less than a moment to realize what he had been hungry for. Drool was filling his mouth and his legs twitched unconsciously as he fought to stay in his chair. _This_ was what he wanted. This was what he _needed_. He was starving to feel these, to eat this, to…

To feed off his family.

Danny shuddered and forced himself away from that dead mode, swallowing heavily and staring down at his hands as everything around him came crashing back into focus. His family's emotions, so crystal-sharp a moment earlier, faded to a bustling in the back of his mind. He took a deep breath and clasped his hands together under the table.

"I have this plan," his father was saying. "When we were out in the woods I picked up a unique frequency in the EVP recordings. I was thinking I could set up one of the digital voice recorders to actually track it."

"As in, follow a ghost around?" his sister muttered dubiously.

A wash of emotion floated out of her as she spoke, tinged with the feel of cats leaving hairs behind on clothes, and Danny bit his lip. Now that he was aware of just what his body was searching for, Danny was supremely aware of the emotions flooding the area around him. He wanted nothing more than to feel those emotions… but no. He wasn't a ghost. He wasn't going to feed off his own family.

"It could be the first official invention of Fentonworks," Jack said proudly, his emotions loud and clear even from across the table. "The Fenton Ghost Finder."

"You're _not_ hanging up that sign." Jazz leaned forwards, her leg brushing against Danny's. The contact made her emotions jump in volume inside of Danny's mind and he yanked his leg away, closing his eyes and shivering at the delicious sensation of his body absorbing the energy his sister was giving off. _God_, that had felt good.

No. He wasn't going to…

"But it's Fentonworks!" his father argued. "We need a sign if we're going to have a business."

Jazz scowled, her emotions swirling loudly in Danny's mind. "It's going to break about thirty city ordinances if you hang it up. You'll have a dozen complaints in a week!"

He _wasn't_ going to…

Danny wrapped his arms around his chest, his breath rasping in his throat. They were arguing, ramping up their emotions, the twirling streams of their emotions tugging at Danny from every direction. Every time he blinked, his mind was trying to push him into that world of the dead. The world kept going fuzzy, only to be pushed back through brute will power.

But Danny knew that it was a losing battle. Sitting right here, in the middle of it all, was like trying to prevent the tide from coming in.

He wasn't…

"It's my house, I don't see how the city can have any say as to what I put on it."

"_Mom_," Jazz complained, "can't you talk some sense into him? He _can't_ hang up that disaster of a sign!"

"Danny?" He jerked his head up, staring straight into his mother's concerned eyes. He could feel his fingers digging into his arms and he knew that he was breathing far too fast. There wasn't anything he could do about it, however. It was taking everything he had to stay in his seat. "Danny, what's wrong?"

"N-nothing," he stammered. He pushed back from the table and got shakily to his feet. "I-I just… I'm tired."

She followed, getting to her feet and walking around the table. She touched his chin and ran a hand over his forehead. The feel of her skin was accompanied by a surge of worried emotions and Danny flinched away from her. "You're not tired, Sweetheart," she said, her eyes searching his. "You're freezing."

He stared at her, feeling swamped by the concern that was flooding out of her. The crisp apple-like tint of her emotions was sliced through with the antiseptic scent of a doctor's office.

_Warm apple pies backing in the autumn, heaps of whipped cream ready to be placed on top, the sharp smell of the autumn days, walking to school with thin layers of ice crunching under your feet, the happy days of being together as a family, coiled around visits to the hospital, staring at sick relatives, holding hands that were too cold to be healthy._

Danny blinked and jerked away. His heart was racing, his ghost side screaming to be allowed to eat. The thing inside of him curled and snarled, digging its claws into Danny's stomach with a pain that almost made him scream.

"What just happened to your eyes?" his mother whispered.

For a second, Danny stared at her, feeling his heart pounding loudly in his ears. _ Do I tell her?_ he wondered. _Should I tell her?_ _Can I ever get her to believe me?_ "I…"

_I almost died in that portal accident. I'm starving. Can I feed off of you?_

"I…"

_I'm a ghost and I can't handle it anymore. I just want to eat, I just want to forget, and I just want to sleep. _

"I'm tired," he whispered, fighting down his ghost side with the last of his strength, terrified of what would happen when he couldn't stop his ghost anymore. He didn't want his family hurt. "I'm gonna… get some sleep."

Pushing away from his mother, he made it to the stairs before his ghost side completely took over. Danny's human mind collapsed into oblivion as a phantom, finally freed from its human consciousness, raced out to feed on whatever it wanted.

* * *

Danny woke up sprawled on his bed, still fully clothed, his neck hurting from the way he'd been sleeping. Pushing himself to his hands and knees, Danny looked out the window. The sun had long since set, which prompted a glance at his alarm clock. Midnight.

He groaned and dropped back down, rolling onto his back and staring up at the darkened ceiling, futilely searching his mind for some clue of what had happened after his ghost side took over. After a moment he gave up and rolled out of bed, pacing quietly down the hallway and quietly dreading what he might find. A quick peek into his parents' room showed them both asleep in their bed and his sister snoozing in hers.

A strange sense of relief filled him as he watched his parents' sleep. That sliver of a memory from when he'd attacked Sam and knocked her out crept into his mind and he shivered. Was it really possible that he could have killed her? Could he kill his family and not even remember it?

He turned away and trudged downstairs to grab a glass of water, trying to force the idea out of his mind. As he searched through the dark kitchen for a glass, Danny dully realized that he wasn't hungry anymore. It made a cruel sort of sense, though. He wasn't hungry because he'd…

With his glass of water in hand, Danny sank to the floor, his back against the refrigerator, and pulled his knees up to his chest. He just sat there, in the darkness, and stared dully forwards. The thought was stuck in his mind, coiling there, refusing to even complete itself.

He wasn't hungry anymore because he'd…

…He'd fed off of his family.

Setting the glass of water on the floor, Danny buried his forehead in his knees and wrapped his arms around his legs, curling into a little ball. His first thought was a sort of rejection – he'd never do something like that again. Only monsters fed from humans! But deep down, he knew what kind of pointless promise that was. His ghost side was too strong to be denied something as basic as food. Eventually, he'd have to give in again.

He tightened his arms around his legs, feeling it become harder to breathe. Why did he have to feel so much better now than he had before? The pervasive tiredness was gone, the ache in his muscles had faded, and his stomach had finally stopped angrily demanding to be fed.

A small shiver traced through him as a half-memory brushed his mind. The intense feeling of pleasure, of being full and content, of not having any worries in the world beyond protecting his home.

He closed his eyes and sighed, feeling tears prickling at his eyes. "Why?" he whispered, almost pleading with the silent kitchen. "Why?" Why did it have to feel so good? Why did he have to _want_ it like he did? Why did it almost feel like he hadn't done anything wrong?

It _was_ wrong, wasn't it? Feeding off human beings had to be something he shouldn't do; it was something he shouldn't even _think_ of doing.

So why was his mind almost obsessively returning to the delightful feeling of those emotions touching against his nerves, the thrill of that energy coursing through his body and into his mind? Why did he want it so badly?

His fingers came up to tangle in his hair and he let out a low groan. "Stupid ghosts," he muttered. His head finally came up, his chin propping up on his arms, and he stared out into the shadows of his parents' kitchen.

Alone, in the dark, Danny could do nothing but be plagued by his own thoughts. The gentle feel of his family's auras had faded away; he could barely feel them now. Even the perpetual buzz of the portal in the basement was little more than a mosquito whining away in a window. There was nothing to distract him as his mind started to twirl in circles.

Danny stared distantly into the darkest shadow he could find, allowing his midnight-driven thoughts to wander around with monsters and demons and other things that deserved the deaths they were always given. What was it his mother had said? 'A creature with no morals, completely driven by emotions, capable of actually hurting people? We'd have to destroy it.'

Him. That's who she was talking about. He still had his morals, he still knew right from wrong, but if he told her, would she see him as a monster, or as a son? Would she destroy him or let him live to eventually destroy her?

Every day that passed, Danny's ghost side was getting stronger. It was invading his human life at every turn, ruining everything from his family and friends to the simple joy of cheese fries from the Nasty Burger. How much longer before his human side was the weaker one? Before Danny succumbed to these wild instincts and was nothing more than a monster?

A picture flared in his head – one of a monstrous ghost with flaming hair, claws, and fangs. It was himself, lost to his ghost side, desperate for the emotions that kept him alive, an addict searching for his next fix. Only he had the ability to hurt… the ability to kill. Danny had reached into Sam's very soul and touched her life. He could have killed her. In the midnight hour he sat on his kitchen floor, the idea that he could kill terrified him.

Tears were in his eyes as he sat there, staring into the darkness. He could have killed his family last night, lost to his ghost side, and he would have been powerless to stop it.

A flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye got Danny to flinch and he turned his head to look, but nothing was there. _Something_ swirled and Danny let himself fall into dead mode. The world fuzzed, the ominous ticking of the kitchen clock fading away, and in its place where the sounds and sights of the ghost world. The sleepless ghosts were up and about, their strange screams and cries echoing from all around. The ghost in front of him wagged its rotting, puppy-like tail and let out a ghostly _bark_ – more of a scream of pain than a real bark – and chased its tail for a moment.

Danny rubbed at his eyes, brushing the tears away, and watched the thing play. Then it pranced up to him, its feet leaving the ground at some point and walking on thin air, to stick its maggot-infested nose in Danny's face. Danny twisted his face away from the smell and felt its cold nose press against his cheek.

That was when Danny realized he'd never really touched a ghost before. The things were intangible and he hadn't really given any thought to what they felt like. As the ghost puppy drifted downwards, Danny reached out. His fingers passed through the dog's head on the first try, but he focused and they made contact on the second try.

"Ew," he told the puppy, but the ghost seemed to be having a seizure in pure delight. Its tail was wagging so furiously that its whole body was shaking, dislodging small maggots and bits of rotting fur.

Danny traced his fingers down the puppy's bony spine, feeling the cold fur. It was almost like petting a real dog, only one that whose body was freezing and whose skin wasn't as connected as it should be. Huge clumps of fur stuck to his fingers when he pulled his hand away.

"You're so lucky," he muttered. "I don't think you can hurt people. You just… do whatever. You're a ghost." He sighed and reached out to ruffle the puppy's ears. Its tongue lolled out of its mouth at that one, displaying its missing teeth. "You probably don't even realize humans exist, according to my mother. They're just food to you."

"I could really hurt them though." He gazed down at the dog, running his fingers over and over the smooth patch of fur on the top of its head. The puppy settled down next to him, its eyes closing, an odd noise that might have been a growl of contentment coming from its mouth. "What am I going to do?"

The dog didn't answer.

Hours later, when his mother came downstairs to make herself a morning cup of coffee, she found her son asleep on the kitchen floor. And he still didn't know what he was going to do.

In _real life_, suspicions tend to grow.


	19. Sick People Visit Doctors

_Hopefully the start of more-periodic updates? Cross your fingers...  
_

_Happy April Fool's Day!  
_

* * *

**Real Life**  
A Danny Phantom FanFiction by Cordria

* * *

Chapter 18  
In Which Sick People Visit Doctors

* * *

Danny crossed his arms and glowered at the flowers sitting in the center of the table. The gentle scent of his mother flowed across his senses but Danny ignored it, slumping into a chair he could barely see.

The flowers were dying. In a world lost to blurs and splashes of color, the flowers were more in focus than most other things. Small waves of light and sensation pooled and poured around the purple petals, the tulips' lives slowly dripping onto the tabletop like mist.

A watery sound made him look up and blink away the dead world he'd been lost in. His mother was standing over him with a bowl of cereal in her hand, an annoyed look on her face.

"There's nothing wrong with me," Danny insisted for the fourth time that morning. "I don't need to go to the doctor."

An arched eyebrow and a disbelieving look was all he got in response. Danny let out a short breath and took the bowl of cereal, staring down at the contents in frustration. All his well-laid plans the night before were blasted to pieces: he hadn't stayed up to practice, he didn't have much control over these new talents of his, and he hardly doubted his mother would stick around to watch anyways.

Besides, after last night did he really want his family to know? Could he look them in the eyes and tell them he was _feeding_ off them? Could he explain to them how dangerous he was, how much danger they were in by being around him, and how little control he had over it?

He shivered suddenly and picked up the spoon, swirling the cereal around. His mother left the room again, her own bowl of cereal in hand and eating as she ran through her morning chores, but Danny continued to sit and stare at the milky cereal. He wasn't really hungry.

After a few moments, he spooned a bite into his mouth and chewed dismally, his eyes drifting back up to gaze at the flowers. He slowly worked his way through the bowl of cereal – the mush tasting bland and unappetizing in his mouth – and allowed his mind to tumble back into the realm of the dead.

For some reason he couldn't have explained, and never could have put into words even if his life depended on it, he enjoyed watching the flowers die.

* * *

Maddie bustled through the house, drinking the milky remains in her cereal bowl as she headed to her room. She set the cereal bowl down on a dresser and picked out her clothes, shaking her head at her son's stubborn insistence that he wasn't sick. There was obviously something wrong with him, although she had to give him the fact that he looked a lot better this morning. Perhaps all the sleep he'd gotten the day before had done him some good. But after supper last night and finding him on the kitchen floor that morning, it didn't matter how much he complained.

Pulling on her clothes and peeking in the mirror to make sure her hair was still in place, Maddie smiled at her reflection and picked up her empty cereal bowl. "He's fine," she said to herself, trying to soothe a little worried note in the back of her mind. That's what the doctor was going to say too, she was sure; she was just an overprotective parent and her son was fine.

As she headed back downstairs, her words didn't help. The worry picked and bothered her with each step that she took, cresting when she stopped in the doorway of the kitchen and saw her son staring blankly at the flowers on the table.

She barely gave a second thought to the flowers – Jack had gotten them for her yesterday in an attempt to cheer her up (or so he claimed) – instead, her attention was focused on her child. Her little boy. How pale and drawn he looked, how emotionless his face was, how dead his eyes looked…

An image of her son last night at supper flashed through her mind. How hungry he'd looked when he stared at her, all of the life drained out of his eyes, the way he hadn't even seemed to be focused on her, and how, just for a moment, there had been sparkles of bright green in his blue eyes.

"The doctor appointment isn't for an hour and a half," she said, watching Danny blink a few times and focus on her.

"What?" he asked, shaking his head a little and glancing down at his half-eaten remains of his cereal.

"You still look tired," she said with a small smile, walking over and taking the bowl from his hands. It didn't look like he'd eaten much of it. "The doctor appointment isn't for awhile; why don't you go take a nap?"

He watched her set his bowl in the sink, then crossed his arms on the table and rested his chin on his arms. "I'm not tired. And I don't want to go to the doctor."

"I know." Maddie settled into a chair next to him and brushed his bangs out of his eyes. She felt her heart flutter as she gazed into his blue eyes, for some reason worried that she'd see death and motes of green. When she saw nothing she felt her shoulders relax a little and she tried for a sympathetic smile, amused with herself that she'd worry about something like that. It must have been a trick of the light – nobody's eyes could look green like that. "You're not eating and you're not sleeping well. You're going."

Danny made a noncommittal sound and turned his head away, going back to studying the tulips. His mother watched him for a long moment, then reached out and flicked on the television, settling for a local news channel. "Cloudy with a high around eighty," the weatherman cheerfully reported. "We should be seeing the sun a little this afternoon and tomorrow should be bright and sunny, highs in the low eighties."

"Dang it, I'm late," Jazz said as she burst into the kitchen, and grabbed for a bowl and the box of cereal. "Dad's stole all the hot water so I had to wait for the water heater to catch up and then I couldn't find my report! At this rate I'm going to be tardy for sure." She snatched the carton of milk from the counter and poured it over her cereal, spooning it into her mouth almost before the milk had settled. "Is Danny going to school today?"

Maddie shook her head, smiling at her frantic daughter. "Did you find your report?"

"Yeah, it was under some books." She shoveled a bite into her mouth and vanished from the kitchen. "I'm leaving in a few minutes. Have fun at the doctor Danny!"

Danny narrowed his eyes and shot a glare in the direction his sister had vanished, pulling a small chuckle out of Maddie. Danny's attention switched from the doorway to her, an annoyed look settling onto his face. Overhead, water pipes groaned and floorboards creaked as the two other family members got ready for their day.

Maddie turned her attention to the news, listening to the morning newscasters talking about the traffic in a city an hour away. A special report came on about a truck driver who'd apparently fallen asleep at the wheel and caused some major damage when the sounds of her daughter thumping down the stairs rang through the house. Jazz flashed through the kitchen, almost throwing her cereal bowl into the sink, and was gone with little more than a 'goodbye'.

Shaking her head, Maddie fiddled with the remote control until the next commercial break came. She glanced over at her son.

He was staring at her – or perhaps, she corrected with a bit of a shudder, it would be more correct to say he was staring in her direction. That dead glaze to his eyes from last night was back, piercing right through her heart and making her heart skip a beat.

Instantly seeming to pick up on it, Danny picked up his head and blinked at her, a forced-looking smile appearing on his face. "I'm going to go take a shower," he said abruptly, pushing away from the table.

"Sure," Maddie said, watching her son walk out of the kitchen and head upstairs.

_"I think I'm a ghost_," he had insisted all those days ago, back when she had first started to notice his strange behavior. "_That is the truth! I died two days ago…"_

The gentle sounds of the commercials in the background were suddenly too much for her and she flicked the TV off. As quiet fell, she could hear his desperate voice echoing through her mind.

_"I can prove it!_"

It was insane, really. Her son wasn't a ghost; it wasn't possible that he was a ghost. He was too alive to be dead, too vibrantly real when he'd been sitting next to her.

But there was the dead look in his eyes, sometimes. The way he seemed to be staring at things that weren't there, or the way he reacted to things he shouldn't. The way he'd walked out of a room Jack had insisted Danny hadn't been in. The way he kept dropping things when he shouldn't. The way, when he didn't think she was looking, that he would stare at the floor and look like the world was coming to a complete and total end.

"Danny," she whispered to the empty, silent kitchen. "What's wrong with you?"

* * *

Sam glowered at Jazz as the older girl explained to her that Danny was staying home sick today. She crossed her arms and leaned back against her locker, waiting for Jazz to pick up on the hint and leave.

"I wish you'd drop the act, Sam," Jazz finally sighed, rolling her eyes. "I've known you for years and the disaffected scowl just doesn't work on you."

With no answer coming, the two girls stared at each other for a long moment. For a moment, Jazz pulled looked like she was going to ask something, but she just shook her head and headed up the hallway, vanishing into the crowds.

"Great," Sam whispered dismally, finally turning around to grab her first period textbook. It was probably for the best that Danny had stayed home today, but she really needed to talk to him. There were so many questions that she wanted to ask, so many things she really needed to know.

Wrinkling her nose, she headed through the hall towards where Tucker's locker was located, already seeing his hat through the students. She was most of the way there when she hesitated. "Valerie Grey," she said softly, watching the popular girl disentangle herself from a group of students and vanish into the girl's lavatory.

She glanced up at Tucker, then back to the bathroom. "This is a stupid plan," she muttered, taking a few steps before pushing open the bathroom door and stepping inside. The place was empty except for her and Valerie, the other girl gazing at her reflection in the mirror and messing with her mascara.

"Idiot boys," Valerie was saying darkly, narrowing her eyes and studying herself closely. "Why did they do that?"

Sam licked her lips and straightened her back, walking up to the other girl and leaning her hip against one of the sinks. "Hi Valerie."

Valerie looked at her, blinked in confusion a few times, then looked around. "Um… hi?"

Sam stared at Valerie for a long moment, remembering every little thing the 'popular' crowd had done to her best friend while Valerie stood by and watched. Her lips tightened and her jaw clenched, all of her plans to be cautious and friendly running from her mind. "You see ghosts," she said bluntly.

The other girl's mascara wand fell into the sink with a clatter; Valerie's hand was not as steady as it had been as she reached down to pick it up. "That's stupid."

"No it's not," Sam countered, gazing at her steadily. "I want to know what you see."

"I don't see anything," Valerie said, twisting the cap onto her mascara and turning to head out of the bathroom. "Leave me alone."

Sam followed her. As the African-American teen's hand touched the door, Sam said, "I need to know, Valerie."

The other girl paused, her fingers curled around the handle. There were a few beats of seconds, the Valerie turned around to look at her. "I don't see anything," she said slowly and steadily. "Leave me alone." The door was yanked open and Valerie stepped out into the hallway. "But watch out for that friend of yours."

Then she was gone into the bustling of the hallway, leaving Sam staring at the slowly closing bathroom door.

* * *

Danny decided that he'd finally found a place he hated more than school. It hadn't taken him more than five minutes to determine that clinics were worse. He slunk a little lower in the uncomfortable waiting room chair and glowered at anyone who dared came close to him.

"Danny, sit up," his mother whispered, but Danny ignored her. For a moment Danny figured that if she was intent on dragging him to see the doctor, she could deal with him slouching. But when she tore her eyes away from the magazine she'd picked up, Danny sighed and sat up.

"Maria?" a nurse called.

Danny watched an older woman teeter through the door to the doctor's office, chatting pleasantly with the nurse like they were old friends. A low breath slipped out from between his teeth and he sank back down into a more comfortable position. Almost unconsciously, his hands came up and rubbed at his arms.

Why was it so cold at the clinic? Danny fought back a sudden shiver and glanced over at his mother. She didn't seem all that cold…

The world suddenly slid out of focus and Danny gazed at the blurry image of his mother for a moment. The sound of the humans had dropped away to a blurry mess; the shrieks and barks of the ghosts crowding the hospital had jumped into focus. When he turned to face back front, he flinched and pressed back as far in his chair as he could.

Standing right in front of him was a ghost.

_That was the cold from before_, Danny's mind informed him as he clutched at the armrests of his chair, his eyes wide and his face paling, waited for his ghost to appear and stretch out its claws and take control of his mind. _Not here, not at the clinic, not right next to Mom._

The supernatural fury didn't come. Alone in his mind, Danny stared at the ghost, his breath rasping in and out of his mouth. When the old ghost leaned forwards, Danny licked his lips and pressing back even harder in his chair. _Stay away from me_, Danny wanted to scream at it.

It was the ghost of an ancient man, leaning heavily on its cane, an old-style cloak rapped around him. Wrinkles covered its face as the man reached into a pocket and drew out a silver pocket watch. It squinted its reddish-tinted eyes at the watch, then a creepy grin slid onto its face.

Danny shuddered and wished he could get up and run, but the chair effectively trapped him. Besides, with all the people around he would have an impossibly hard time explaining what was going on without ending up in the psychiatry ward.

"Danny," the ghost said, its voice filled with the screams of the damned. The red eyes fixed onto Danny's blue eyes. At the sound of his name, Danny flinched slightly, unable to tear his eyes away from the ghost.

There was something about the ghost that was changing. Danny couldn't put his finger on it – it wasn't the shape of the ghost or the colors or anything.

It wasn't until the old ghost leaned even closer, a rotting stench filling Danny's nose and a hair-raising grin appearing on the man's face, that Danny figured it out. The old man was aging – backwards. At first it had been ancient, perhaps eighty or ninety years old, but now it seemed to be only fifty. With every second that passed, decades were being wiped from the man's features.

The ghost chuckled crazily, its voice echoing oddly, and straightened back up. Now a middle-aged man and not needing to lean on its cane, it picked the cane up and held it in its hand like a baton. "You're late for your appointment," the ghost informed him.

The cane was held out, one end reaching to rap the top of his head. Danny flinched as it hit, feeling a cold thunk, and the world instantly dissolved back to the human world. The ghosts were gone, the quiet sound of humans chatting was back, and the ever-present emotions of the people around him had dimmed down to a quiet hum in the back of his mind.

"Danny," his mother said, exasperated.

Danny looked up at her. She was standing, her magazine tucked under her arm, studying him. After a moment, Danny got to his feet as well and, feeling a little light-headed, looked around. A nurse was standing by the door with a clipboard in her hand, looking over at them intently. The old ghost was nowhere to be seen.

Maddie's hand brushed over his forehead and cupped his chin for a second and Danny looked back at her. She looked concerned, her eyes searching his pale face for something. Finally she let go and said, "Come on."

With a glance back at where the ghost had been standing, Danny hurried after his mother. The little ghosts were flickering in and out of the corners his vision and the little hairs still standing up on the back of his neck. More than a little happy to be out of the waiting room, Danny followed the nurse.

* * *

"So."

Sam looked up from her assignment, blinking at the brown eyes gazing down at her. Paulina pushed her hair over her shoulder, giving it an 'I'm better than you' flip, and settled a smile on her face. "What do you want?" Sam asked darkly.

"I want to know if your boyfriend is doing drugs," Paulina said bluntly, eying Tucker as the boy slipped into his seat beside Sam.

Setting down her pencil, Sam sat up straighter in her desk. "He's not my boyfriend… and why would you think he's doing drugs?" Sam asked slowly.

"The way he's acting." Paulina looked down at her fingernails, studying them before looking back up at Sam. "_Everyone_'s saying he is, you know, but I'm not going to pass on a rumor unless I know for sure."

"Danny's not doing drugs!" She couldn't really believe that she'd have to say that about her friend.

"Of course not," Paulina said, smiling. "So I was right. He's in rehab." She turned to walk away, but Sam was out of her seat before Paulina made it more than a few steps.

"Sam." A hand grabbed onto her arm, yanking her back down into her chair. "It's not worth it."

Sam twisted to glare at the owner of the hand, a furious heat in her stomach. "Who started that rumor?" she snapped.

Tucker shrugged and looked up at her with a tired smile. "Does it matter? All I know is that the more you react to it, the longer it'll last. Just ignore it."

With a short breath racing through her nose, Sam settled back into her chair and picked up her pencil. She glared at the pencil for a long moment, her fingers tightly gripping it, before purposefully relaxing her hand. "Well?"

Tucker didn't even need to ask what she meant by that. His smile grew a little and he held out a piece of paper. "Phase one of 'Operation Valerie' is complete. Although you wouldn't believe what I had to trade Mikey to get it."

Sam took the paper, carefully opening it and staring down at the piece of stolen notebook paper. It was covered in doodles. Little animals and bugs and things wound around Valerie's neat handwriting – all of the creatures zombie-like and rotting and all of them drawn in creepy detail. "Perfect," Sam whispered.

She hesitated for a moment, staring at the pictures. It was hard to believe that these were the things Danny was seeing every day. No wonder he looked like he was going a little crazy.

Just for a second, the world seemed to spin. _It's your fault_, something whispered in the back of her mind, but Sam shoved it away. It wasn't her fault at all; she wasn't going to let some nagging thought ruin her day. She carefully folded the paper and placed in a back pocket for later, silently focusing back on the work she was supposed to be doing.

* * *

Maddie held tightly onto the steering wheel as she waited for her son to buckle himself into the passenger seat. He crossed his arms and stared out the window, his pale, tired face reflecting back at her, still looking thoroughly annoyed.

"We'll run some blood tests to make sure it's not something more serious," the doctor had assured her, a kind look to his brown eyes, "but it sounds to me like a classic case of teenage depression. Trouble sleeping, not eating, the pale tiredness and stressed-out expressions. It's pretty common among kids his age."

He'd answered every one of her questions with a patient calmness. "Right now, it's a wait-and-see kind of situation. Most likely, it'll go away on its own given time. Keep an eye on him – if he starts to exhibit any behaviors that worry you, bring him back in. If he's not any better in two weeks, we can talk about what to do next. There are all sorts of help we can give him."

She turned the key of the car, starting it and pulling out of her spot without saying a word. _Depression_. She flicked a glance over at her son, then focused back on the road. It _did_ make sense, she had to give the doctor that.

A huge part of her was feeling a sort of relief that whatever was wrong had been identified and could be solved. The mystery had been cataloged and could be stored away in the back of her mind. It wouldn't be fixed overnight, but Danny would eventually be fine.

The problem was that a small part of her mind was screaming at her that it wasn't the right answer. It had come on so suddenly… but maybe it had been triggered by the shock he'd gotten in the lab. The doctor had said it was a possibility, but that it was much more likely that he'd been developing his depression for some time and that she'd finally noticed it.

She glanced at her son again. He was staring blankly out the window, his arms crossed on his chest, slouching down tiredly in his seat. She felt like she should be saying something, like there was some kind of phrase that one said right about now, but she couldn't come up with anything to say that didn't sound stupid and made up.

Rolling her eyes slightly, she wondered if she would ever be the kind of 'good' parent she knew was out there. Never knowing what to say, not noticing that her son was developing a serious case of depression, and so wrapped up in her work that he had to pull a very dangerous stunt to get some attention. Inventions she could handle with no problem, circuit boards and soldering guns were easy – parenting had never been.

"Danny?" The word slipped out even though she hadn't decided what to say. He looked over at her, his blue eyes clear and focused for once. She smiled a little, letting the first words that came to her mind tumble into the air. "Do you feel up for school tomorrow?"

He looked like he started to shrug, but changed it to a nod. "Yeah, sure."

"Get lots of sleep today then, okay Sweetheart?"

A faint smile appeared on his face. "Kay."

Maddie turned her attention back to the road, stepping on the gas when the light turned green, letting her son drift back to his own thoughts. She'd do what the doctor suggested, she'd wait and see what happened, but she was planning on keeping a very close eye on him for the next couple of weeks.

* * *

Tucker hesitated outside his house after school, staring up at the darkened windows. It was Tuesday – the day his mother worked late and, for reasons Tucker really didn't understand, she didn't like Tucker being home on his own even though he was almost fifteen.

Usually on Tuesdays, Tucker and Sam headed over to Danny's, but since he was staying home today sick…

With a suddenly blink, Tucker glanced at his watch and let a little breath slip from his lungs. It was almost the one-week anniversary of the accident that turned Danny into the whatever-he-was. Five minutes from it, give or take. Tucker shivered a little and pushed the thought from his mind, heading up the stairs to his front door. The key slid easily into the door and Tucker stepped into his empty house.

"Hello?" he called out just in case and shrugged at the lack of response. His shoes were kicked into a corner and he took the steps to his bedroom two at a time, a stack of papers clutched tightly in his hands. His backpack was tossed onto his bed, his homework forgotten, and he was already shuffling through the papers Sam had stuffed into his hands.

One was an image of a ferret-like creature, hair falling off and bits missing, with an obviously broken spine. The original drawing had been only an inch long, but the library's photocopier had done a fabulous job blowing the image up to multiple times what it had been. Now the creepy thing was nearly the size of Tucker's hand, snarling at him from the page.

"Perfect," Tucker whispered, shuffling through the pages. More drawings decorated the pages, each one of them blown up to many times their original size.

For a second, Tucker felt a sliver of doubt about the plan the two of them had created. He stared down at one of the images, following a bat's wings with his eyes, wondering if perhaps this wasn't a little cruel.

Shaking his head, Tucker set the papers down on his desk and pulled out his cell phone. It didn't really matter if it was cruel or not – they needed to know about Valerie and this plan was the best they'd come up with. Tucker scrolled through the menu on his cell phone, calling up the pictures he'd taken.

He hadn't taken any pictures since the one he'd taken a week earlier. The time stamp at the bottom proclaimed what Tucker already knew: two minutes until it was exactly one week since Danny had become a ghost. Tucker gazed sadly at the image of his friend, moments before his life had been torn apart, that Danny-patented carefree smile on his face.

"It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't snapped this picture," Tucker breathed as the clock ticked steadily towards 4:32pm. He stared at the image for a second more, then suddenly snapped his cell phone closed and set it down on his desk.

For a quiet moment he sat perfectly still, gazing at his desk before digging through his desk for his notebook and flipping quickly through the pages. He stopped on a page where he'd listed everything he'd learned about Danny so far, circles and lines connecting random ideas. "There's got to be a solution to this," he said, biting his lip and adjusting his glasses.

Just as the clock flipped over to the exact minute that the Fenton Ghost Portal had fried his best friend, Tucker's eyes caught on one of his scribblings. The calculator incident. Infrared radiation.

Tucker's gaze drifted over to a box full of junk sitting in his closet. A broken pair of infrared goggles was laying on top. His eyes narrowed and his fingers tapped on his notebook paper. "I wonder…"

* * *

Sam scribbled in her notebook, her legs crossed serenely on her bed, her eyes narrowed as she focused. She wasn't much of a writer – she never had been – but lately she'd been almost cursed with the desire to write. Ever since Danny's accident, poems and stories of the darker variety had spilled from her fingers onto the sloppy pages.

It was therapeutic; at least that's how she passed it off to herself. She needed to write down the thoughts circling in her brain before they became too large and started to eat her alive. Pick them off as minnows; don't let them grow to be sharks.

She silently ignored the fact that she was writing down the story of Danny's 'death' for the ninth time, unaware that she was copying it down almost word for word by this point. It was almost a ritual – each night before she went to sleep, she wrote. She sketched his smile and his happy attitude with her words, then colored over it all with dark letters when the accident happened, her pencil nearly ripping through the page.

As the moon started to shine through the windows, Sam finally quit writing, gazing blankly down at the last few words that had slipped from her mind and through her hands. 'I'm sorry!' it screamed, the two simple words written four times before she'd lifted her hand from the page.

"Why?" she said softly, closing the notebook a bit harder than truly necessary. "It's not my fault, why do I keep apologizing for it?"

Sam tossed her book and pencil to the other side of her bed and buried her face in her hands. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she could hear Danny screaming as the electricity fried through him, burning him almost beyond recognition. She flinched and sat up, her eyes darting around her room.

Letting out an annoyed breath, she dropped backwards to stare up at her ceiling. It was driving her crazy to not be able to get over this. It wasn't like Danny had actually _died_ that day, nor had he been he seriously hurt… as long as you didn't count the ghost thing. But it wouldn't leave her alone.

Sam Manson closed her eyes and simply lay there, doing her best to relax. She took a few deep breaths and felt herself relaxing a little. The pictures in her mind, the circling horror, was so far away during the day. She barely remembered that it was even there when she was busy doing other things.

But lying here, at night by herself, she couldn't hold it at bay. The best she could do was chase it away long enough for her to fall asleep. That's what the writing was for – to scare the monsters away for a few hours.

It would go away on its own, she knew it would. She was a strong person and she could get over this, because there really was nothing to get over. The one person on the planet to whom she would ever had admitted the problem had more issues than she did at the moment. She wasn't going to load anything else on Danny's shoulders.

Besides, Samantha Manson didn't need any help.

--In _real life_, sick people visit doctors.

* * *

_ Thanks to Extant, kdm13, Thunderstorm101, mountainelements, Starburstia, Garnet Sky, disappearingirl, Aytheria, Nano Phantom, Bluefox15, Nylah, tanith-4485, Completely Different, dragondancer123, AnneriaWings, Invader Johnny, Anne Campe aka Obi-quiet, and Pixie dust of doom for the reviews! _

_Sorry if I haven't replied to your reviews yet... life got very awful for a while. :)_

_More coming soon? Hopefully?_

_-Cori  
_


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